Syncretism is the formation of new religious ideas from multiple distinct sources, often contradictory sources. All religions (as well as philosophies, systems of ethics, cultural norms, etc.) possess some level of syncretism because ideas do not exist in a vacuum. People who believe in these religions will also be influenced by other familiar ideas, including their previous religion or another religion with which they are familiar.

Common Examples of Syncretism

Islam, for example, was originally influenced by 7th-century Arab culture, but not by African culture, with which it has no initial contact. Christianity draws heavily from Jewish culture (since Jesus was a Jew), but also bears the influence of the Roman Empire, in which the religion developed for its first several hundred years.

Examples of Syncretic Religion – African Diaspora Religions

However, neither Christianity nor Islam is commonly labeled a syncretic religion. Syncretic religions are much more obviously influenced by contradictory sources. African Diaspora religions, for example, are common examples of syncretic religions. Not only do they draw upon multiple indigenous beliefs, they also draw upon Catholicism, which in its traditional form strongly contradicts these indigenous beliefs. Indeed, many Catholics see themselves as having very little in common with practitioners of Vodou, Santeria, etc.

Neopaganism

Some neopagan religions are also strongly syncretic. Wicca is the most well-known example, consciously drawing from a variety of different pagan religious sources as well as Western ceremonial magic and occult thought, which is traditionally very Judeo-Christian in context. However, neopagan reconstructionists such as Asatruar are not particularly syncretic, as they attempt to understand the recreate Norse beliefs and practices to the best of their ability.

Raelian Movement

The Raelian Movement might be seen as syncretic because it has two very strong sources of belief. The first is Judeo-Christianity, recognizing Jesus as a prophet (as well as the Buddha and others), the use of the term Elohim, interpretations of the Bible, and so forth. The second is UFO culture, envisioning our creators as extraterrestrials rather than non-corporeal spiritual beings.

Baha'i Faith

Some categorize the Baha'i as syncretic because they accept multiple religions contain aspects of truth. However, the specific teachings of the Baha'i Faith are primarily Judeo-Christian in nature. Just Christianity developed from Judaism and Islam developed from Judaism and Christianity, the Baha'i faith developed most strongly from Islam. While it recognizes Krishna and Zoroaster as prophets, it really doesn't teach much of Hinduism or Zoroastrianism as being Baha'i beliefs.

Rastafari Movement

The Rastafari Movement is also strongly Judeo-Christian in its theology. However, its black-empowerment component is a central and driving force within Rasta teaching, belief and practice. So, on one hand, the Rastas have a strong additional component. On the other hand, that component is not necessarily terribly contradictory to Judeo-Christian teaching (unlike the UFO component of the Raelian Movement, which depicts Judeo-Christian beliefs and mythology in a radically different context).

Conclusion

Labeling a religion as syncretic is frequently not easy. Some are very commonly identified as syncretic, such as the African Diaspora religions. However, even that is not universal. Miguel A. De La Torre objects to the label for Santeria because he feels Santeria uses Christian saints and iconography merely as a mask for Santeria beliefs, rather than actually embracing Christian belief, for example.

Some religions possess very little syncretism and thus are never labeled as a syncretic religion. Judaism is a good example of this.

Many religions exist somewhere in the middle, and deciding exactly where they should be placed in the syncretic spectrum can be a dicey and somewhat subjective process.

One thing that should be remembered, however, is that syncretism should in no way be seen as a legitimizing factor.

All religions possess some degree of syncretism. It's how humans work. Even if you believe God (or gods) delivered a particular idea, if that idea was completely alien to the listeners, they would not accept it. Moreover, once they receive said idea, that belief can be expressed in a variety of ways, and that expression will be colored by other prevailing cultural ideas of the time.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

I could make a quip about angry remain students, like Zaki Kaf al-Ghazal.. but I won't.. I will simply offer some advice.. "EDUCATE YOURSELVES!"

This next bit left me chuckling, check this out:

Pushing his twin daughters along in a pram outside the shops, Stuart Kilshaw, 43, a docker, says his views have been brought into sharp focus since their birth five weeks ago. He voted remain, but is now more worried about what Brexit might bring. “I feel we have a lot less security now,” he said. “We were better off as we were, and we should have stayed how we were, but we were scuppered by imbeciles who thought too much about immigration rather than what immigration brings.”

wow.. this guy is calling me an imbecile! I wonder if he knows what it means ? Let's help him out:

im·be·cile (ĭm′bə-sĭl, -səl)n.1. A person who is considered foolish or stupid.2. A person with moderate to severe intellectual disability having a mental age of from three to seven years and generally being capable of some degree of communication and performance of simple tasks under supervision. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.

I guess there is no hhop for me!

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

The drama which is unfolding in northern Syria is truly an almost ideal case to fully assess how weak and totally dysfunctional the AngloZionist Empire has really become. Let’s begin with a quick reminder.

The US-Israeli goals in Syria were really very simple. As I have already mentioned in a past article, the initial AngloZionist plan was to overthrow Assad and replace him with the Takfiri crazies (Daesh, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS – call them whatever you want). Doing this would achieve the following goals:

1. Bring down a strong secular Arab state along with its political structure, armed forces and security services. 2. Create total chaos and horror in Syria justifying the creation of a “security zone” by Israel not only in the Golan, but further north. 3. Trigger a civil war in Lebanon by unleashing the Takfiri crazies against Hezbollah. 4. Let the Takfiris and Hezbollah bleed each other to death, then create a “security zone”, but this time in Lebanon. 5. Prevent the creation of a Shia axis Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon. 6. Breakup Syria along ethnic and religious lines. 7. Create a Kurdistan which could then be used against Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. 8. Make it possible for Israel to become the uncontested power broker in the Middle-East and forces the KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and all others to have to go to Israel for any gas or oil pipeline project. 9. Gradually isolate, threaten, subvert and eventually attack Iran with a wide regional coalition of forces. 10. Eliminate all center of Shia power in the Middle-East.

With the joint Russian-Iranian military intervention, this plan completely collapsed. For a while, the USA tried to break up Syria under various scenarios, but the way the Russian Aerospace forces hammered all the “good terrorists” eventually convinced the AngloZionists that this would not work.

The single biggest problem for the Empire is that while it has plenty of firepower in the region (and worldwide), it cannot deploy any “boots on the ground”. Being the Empire’s boots on the ground was, in fact, the role the AngloZionists had assigned to the Takfiri crazies (aka Daesh/IS/ISIS/al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/etc/), but that plan failed. The only US allies left in the region are Israel and Saudi Arabia. The problem with them is that, just like the USA themselves, these countries do not have ground forces capable of actually deploying inside Syria and taking on not only the Syrian military, but the much more capable Iranian and Hezbollah forces. Murdering civilians is really the only thing the Israelis and Saudis are expert in, at least on the ground (in the skies the Israeli Air Force is a very good one). Enter the Kurds.

The AngloZionist wanted to use the Kurds just like NATO had used the KLA in Kosovo: as a ground force which could be supported by US/NATO and maybe even Israeli airpower. Unlike the Israelis and Saudis, the Kurds are a relatively competent ground force (albeit not one able to take on, say, Turkey or Iran).

The folks at the Pentagon had already tried something similar last year when they attempted to create a sovereign Kurdistan in Iraq by means of a referendum. The Iraqis, with some likely help from Iran, immediately put an end to this nonsense and the entire exercise was a pathetic “flop”.

Which immediately begs to obvious question: are the Americans even capable of learning from their mistakes? What in the world were they thinking when they announced the creation of 30’000 strong Syrian Border Security Force (BSF) (so called to give the illusion that protecting Syria’s border was the plan, not the partition Syria)? The real goal was, as always, to put pressure on Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia while grabbing a lot of oil. As always with Uncle Shmuel, the entire plan had no UNSC authorization was thus totally illegal under international law (as is the presence of the USA in the Syria’s airspace and territory, but nobody cares any more).

Did Trump and his generals really think that Turkey, Iran, Syria and Russia would accept a US protectorate in Syria masquerading as an “independent Kurdistan” and do nothing about it? Yet again, and I know this sounds hard to believe, but I think that this is yet another strong indication that the Empire is run by stupid and ignorant people whose brain and education simply do not allow them to grasp even the basic dynamics in the region of our planet there are interfering with.

Whatever may be the case the Turks reacted exactly as everybody thought: the Turkish Chief of Staff jumped into an airplane, flew to Moscow, met with top Russian generals (including Minister of Defense Shoigu) and clearly got a “go ahead” from Moscow: not only were the Turkish airplanes flying over Syria’s Afrin province not challenged by Russian air defense systems (which have ample coverage in this region), but the Russians also helpfully withdrew their military personnel from the region lest any Russian get hurt. Sergei Lavrov deplored it all, as he had to, but it was clear to all that Turkey had the Russian backing for this operation. I would add that I am pretty sure that the Iranians were also consulted (maybe at the same meeting in Moscow?) to avoid any misunderstandings as there is little love lost between Ankara and Tehran.

What about the Kurds? Well, how do I say that nicely? Let’s just say that what they did was not very smart. That’s putting it very, very mildly. The Russians gave them a golden deal: accept large autonomy in Syria, come to the National Dialog Congress to take place in Sochi, we will make your case before the (always reluctant) Syrians, Iranians and Turks and we will even give you money to help you develop your oil production. But no, the Kurds chose to believe in the hot air coming from Washington and when the Turks attacked that is all the Kurds got from Washington: hot air.

In fact, it is pretty clear that the US Americans have, yet again, betrayed an ally: Tillerson has now “greenlighted” a 30km safe zone in Syria (as if anybody was asking for his opinion, nevermind permission!). Take a look at this simple map of the Afrin region and look what 50 miles (about 80km) look like. You can immediately see that this 30km “safe zone” means: the end of any Kurdish aspirations to created a little independent Kurdistan in northern Syria.

To say that all these developments make the Russians really happy is not an exaggeration. It is especially sweet for the Russians to see that they did not even have to do much, that this ugly mess of a disaster for the USA was entirely self-inflicted. What can be sweeter than that?

Let’ look at it all from the Russian point of view:

First, this situation further puts Turkey (a US ally and NATO member) on a collision course with the US/NATO/EU. And Turkey is not ‘just’ a NATO ally, like Denmark or Italy. Turkey is the key to the eastern Mediterranean and the entire Middle-East (well, one of them at least). Also, Turkey has a huge potential to be a painful thorn in the southern ‘belly’ of Russia so it is really crucial for Russia to keep Uncle Sam and the Israelis as far away from Turkey as possible. Having said that, nobody in Russia harbors *any *illusions about Turkey and/or Erdogan. Turkey will always be a problematic neighbor for Russia (the two countries already fought 12 wars!!!). But there is a big difference between “bad” and “worse”. Considering that in a not too distant past Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft over Syria, financed, trained and supported “good terrorists” in Syria, was deeply involved in the Tatar separatist movement in Crimea, and was the main rear base for the Wahabi terrorists in Chechnia for well over a decade, “worse” in the case of Turkey can be much, much worse than “bad” is today.

Second, these developments have clearly brought Turkey into an even closer cooperative dynamic with Russia and Iran, something which Russia very much desires. Turkey by itself is much more of a potential problem than a Turkey which partners up with Russia and Iran (ideally with Syria too, but considering the animosity between the two countries and their leaders that is something for the distant future, at least for the time being). What is shaping up is an informal (but very real) Russian-Turkish-Iranian regional alliance against the Axis of Kindness: USA-Israel-KSA. If that is what happens then the latter does not stand a chance to prevail.

Third, even though the Kurds are outraged and are now whining about the Russian “betrayal” – they will come to realize that they did it to themselves and that their best chance for freedom and prosperity is to work with the Russians. That means that the Russians will be able to achieve with, and for, the Kurds what the USA could not. Yet another very nice side-benefit for Russia.

Fourth, Syria, Iran and Turkey now realize a simple thing: only Russia stands between the crazy US-Israeli plans for the region and them. Absent Russia, there is nothing stopping the AngloZionist from re-igniting the “good terrorists” and the Kurds and use them against every one of them.

Be it as it may, having the USA and Israel shoot themselves in the leg and watch them bleed is not enough. To really capitalize on this situation the Russians need to also achieve a number of goals:

First, they need to stop the Turks before this all turns into a major and protracted conflict. Since Tillerson “greenlighted” a 30km “safe zone”, this is probably what Erdogan told Trump over the phone and that, in turn, is probably what the Russians and the Turks agreed upon. So, hopefully, this should not be too hard to achieve.

Second, the Russians need to talk to the Kurds and offer them the same deal again: large autonomy inside Syria in exchange for peace and prosperity. The Kurds are not exactly the easiest people to talk to, but since there is really no other option, my guess is that as soon as they stop hallucinating about the US going to war with Turkey on their behalf they will have to sit down and negotiate the deal. Likewise, the Russians will have to sell the very same deal to Damascus which, frankly, is in no position to reject it.

Third, Russia has neither the desire nor the means to constantly deal with violent flare-ups in the Middle-East. If the Empire desperately needs wars to survive, Russia desperately needs peace. In practical terms this means that the Russians must work with the Iranians, the Turks, the Syrians to secure a regional security framework which would be guaranteed and, if needed, enforced by all parties. And yes, the next logical step will be to approach Israel and the KSA and give them security guarantees in exchange for their assurances to stop creating chaos and wars on behalf of the USA. I know, I will get a lot of flak for saying this, but there *are* people in Israel and, possibly, Saudi Arabia who also understand the difference between “bad” and “worse”. Heed my words: as soon as the Israelis and the Saudis realize that Uncle Sam can’t do much for them either, they will suddenly become much more open to meaningful negotiations. Still, whether these rational minds will be sufficient to deal with the rabid ideologues I frankly don’t know. But it is worth trying for sure.

Conclusion

The Trump Administration’s “strategy” (I am being very kind here) is to stir up as many conflicts in as many places of our planet as possible. The Empire thrives only on chaos and violence. The Russian response is the exact opposite: to try as best can be to stop wars, defuse conflicts and create, if not peace, at least a situation of non-violence. Simply put: peace anywhere is the biggest danger to the AngloZionist Empire whose entire structure is predicated on eternal wars. The total and abject failure of all US plans for Syria (depending on how you count we are at “plan C” or even “plan D”) is a strong indicator of how weak and totally dysfunctional the AngloZionist Empire has become. But ‘weak’ is a relative term while ‘dysfunctional’ does not imply ‘harmless’. The current lack of brains at the top, while very good in some ways, is also potentially very dangerous. I am in particular worried about what appears to be a total absence of real military men (officers in touch with reality) around the President. Remember how Admiral Fallon once referred to General Petraeus as “an ass-kissing little chickenshit“? This also fully applies to the entire gang of generals around Trump – all of them are the kind of men real officers like Fallon would, in this words, “hate”. As for State, I will just say this: I don’t expect much from a man who could not even handle Nikki Haley, nevermind Erdogan.

Remember how the USA ignited the Ukraine to punish the Russians for their thwarting of the planned US attack on Syria? Well, the very same Ukraine has recently passed a law abolishing the “anti-terrorist operation” in the Donbass and declaring the Donbass “occupied territory”. Under Ukie law, Russia is now officially an “aggressor state”. This means that the Ukronazis have now basically rejected the Minsk Agreements and are in a quasi-open state of war with Russia. The chances of a full-scale Ukronazi attack on the Donbass are now even higher then before, especially before or during the soccer World Cup in Moscow this summer (remember Saakashvili?). Having been ridiculed (again) with their Border Security Force in Syria, the US Americans will now seek a place to take revenge on the evil Russkies and this place will most likely be the Ukraine. And we can always count the Israelis to find a pretext to continue to murder Palestinians and bomb Syria. As for the Saudis, they appear to be temporarily busy fighting each other. So unless the Empire does something really crazy, the only place it can lash out with little to lose (for itself) is the eastern Ukraine. The Novorussians understand that. May God help them.

The Saker

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

"Nearly one-fifth of China's trade is now settled in yuan, up from less than 1 percent in 2009"

By Chris Ferreira of Economic Reason

World Reserve Currencies: What Happened During Previous Periods of Transition?

The decline of the US dollar hegemony is ever so clear today and this article aims to provide the reader with what exactly happened during past periods of reserve currency transitions. Historically, when a reserve currency transitioned over to a new one, it marked a pivotal change for the world. The economic paradigm shifted and the rules of the game changed. This time will be no different when the US dollar loses its status as the reserve currency!The transition process of the world reserve currency brings much uncertainty

Throughout history, a transition of the reserve currencies has always brought about turmoil and uncertainty in financial markets. One country’s decline, and the subsequent rise of another, marks a radical transformation for the world, especially as market demand shifts. The country that dominates global commerce during any given period is usually marked with the status of having the reserve currency. Spain and Portugal dominated the 15th and 16th centuries, the Netherlands the 17th century, France and Britain the 18th and 19th centuries, and the US dominated the 20th century.

Throughout the Age of Exploration, Portugal created a dominant global empire. Traditional trade routes to Asia were no longer feasible due to the growth of the Ottoman Empire and their 1453 capture of Constantinople, and so the need for alternative trade routes emerged. Thanks to advances in navigational technology as well as other auspicious circumstances, the Portuguese, and soon the Spanish, were to reach Africa, Asia, and the New World. Consequently, the Portuguese and later the Spanish currencies became the primary currencies used in global trade at that time. The Portuguese, throughout their travels and discoveries, established military outposts along the coasts of Africa, India, Malaysia, Japan, and China (Macau), etc.; when they became over-extended, the empire eventually declined due to attacks and competition from other countries (mainly the Dutch, British and French). Portugal and Spain then merged together to create the Iberian union; however, it collapsed through wars and revolutions by the mid-17th century.

It was then the turn of the Dutch, whose rise to global power was largely aided by the creation of the first multinational corporation in the world, the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The Dutch defeated Portugal and Spain in global economic importance and positioned themselves to profit from European demand for spices. By 1669, the VOC was the richest private company that the world had ever seen, with over 150 merchant ships, 40 warships, 50,000 employees, a private army of 10,000 soldiers, and a dividend payment of 40% on the original investment to shareholders. Later, with the event of the Anglo-Dutch War, the spice trade was temporarily ceased and this caused a spike in prices for spices. At that point, other countries were enticed to start their own spice trading companies, namely the French and English (French East India Company and English East India Company). The saturation of the spice market and the costly Anglo-Dutch wars destroyed the Dutch East India Company and their currency (the “Guilder”) as a global currency.

France achieved European political dominance under Louis XIV, and although the legacy of the ‘Roi Soleil’ was great. it is not to be forgotten that he left his heirs in a whirlwind of social strife and extreme debt caused principally by war and an unfair tax base. While the French debt was being allowed to reach staggering amounts, the British, meanwhile, were engaging in an Industrial Revolution that would set Britain apart, creating, in effect, an empire “where the sun never set.” The 1789 French Revolution was essentially a response to a financial crisis that had become debilitating. After a decade of internecine bloodshed and civil war, the French found a new leader under the young general, Napoleon Bonaparte. The Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815 raged for over a decade, extending French influence over much of Europe (and inspiring a revolution in Haiti). At the height of Napoleon in 1812, the French Empire maintained an extensive military presence in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland. It was this Napoleonic empire, however short-lived. that was to rock Europe so profoundly that upon Napoleon’s defeat, the powers of Europe came together to establish a peace at the 1815 Congress of Vienna that would re-balance power for the rest of the 19th century.

Following the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1815, England enjoyed almost a century of global dominance in trade.

By 1922 the British Empire held power over circa 458 million people (one-fifth of the world’s population) and about a quarter of the total land area at the time. By the Second World War, the British Empire was virtually bankrupt. The US provided funding to Britain at the time as they were now the largest creditor nation in the world. However, it was only after the Bretton Woods Conference 1945 that the US dollar officially became the world’s reserve currency.

Each country that rose to ultimate global dominance of commerce declined due to an over-saturation point. Fast-forward to today, and there is a remarkably similar situation for the US. The US has 900 military bases in 130 countries and spent over $640 billion in 2013 on military alone. This figure dwarfs all other military spending combined BY ALL OTHER COUNTRIES. The US is no longer the largest creditor nation in the world, but rather the largest debtor nation in the history of the world. China is now the largest creditor nation. Will the 21th century belong to China and the Yuan?

Today the US dominates the land, sea and air with their overbearing military reach in 130 countries. However, the landscape for war is once again changing. Alternative versions of the traditional warfare are emerging, such as economic/cyber war. By enforcing trade sanctions on a country and manipulating market prices, powerful countries can exert force without even having to step into another country. In other words, the stock market and future’s market have become a tool for the elite. They can drop the price of oil to bankrupt a particular country or sell their national debt on the market to wipe out their currency and create hyper inflation. These measures are much quicker/efficient for government and the elite to employ than the traditional methods of war we have seen in the last century. Although the US dominates the traditional sense of war, they do not have the same type of defense mechanisms in the financial market. As I pointed out in a previous, How the US Dollar Can Collapse, there are virtually an unlimited number of ways the US can be attacked today.

The Typical Duration of a World Reserve Currency

The reserve currency transition is a cycle that has typically lasted in history somewhere between 80 to 110 years. Officially, the US dollar has been the reserve currency for 68 years. However, the US dollar was used in trade much before, since the 1920?s in fact. That would put the US dollar closer to 90+ years as the reserve currency. These cycles of about 100 years (one century) is very common in history: the ancients called it a saeculum which represented four seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter). As with all cycles, there was a period of growth, saturation, peak, and decline which represented these seasons. An excellent book on economic cycles, with a focus on the current cycle in which we find ourselves, is The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It is a must-read. Here is a quote from Strauss’s book:

“An appreciation for history is never more important than at times when a secular winter is forecast. In the fourth turning, we can expect to encounter personal and public choices akin to the hardest ever faced by an ancestral generation. We would do well to learn from their experiences, viewed through the prism of cyclical time. This will not come easily. It will require us to lend a new seasonal interpretation to our revered American Dream. And it will require us to admit that our faith in linear progress has often amounted to a Faustian bargain with our children. Faust always ups the ante, and every bet is double or nothing. Through much of the Third Turning, we have managed to postpone the reckoning. But history warns that we can’t defer it beyond the next blend in time.”

The table below shows the transition of each reserve currencies (every 100 years or so) and the events that were carried out during each transition. Every transition was a period of great suffering marked by economic hardships, revolutions, and wars.

The transition of one World Reserve Currency is a cycle that stems from social behavior

Esteemed British economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852-1883), in his work Study of History, also identified an “alternating rhythm” of a cycle of war and peace that has occurred in Europe at roughly one-century intervals since the Renaissance. In addition to Europe, Toynbee also identified similar cycles in Chinese and Hellenistic history that averaged 95 years. He linked this to the gradual decay of the “living memory of a previous war,” whereby the descendents of war veterans, for whom their only knowledge of war was through stories, history books, and hearsay, would eventually come into power and resume the belligerent behavior pattern of their forefathers.

The most recent global crisis period was marked by WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2; from the start (1914) to the finish (1945) we find a period that ranges from 100 (1914-2014) to 69 (1945-2014) years ago. This suggests that we may be entering into a new global crisis with the same cyclical thinking.

Global crises wreak havoc on all levels of existence, not to the mention the great cost to human lives. If we are to learn from history, however, it seems as though we might have to nevertheless brace ourselves for yet another one in the near future, as it marks the end of one saeculum and the start of a new economic paradigm aligned more positively with proper balances of trade, debt, and policies.

The US is trying to postpone the crisis by printing money, however this is creating currency wars with nearly all major central banks in the world. As history has shown us time and again, causing this delay through money printing will only aggravate the problem, not only not preventing the inevitable, but indeed making the transition more painful and costly.

Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Ronen Bergman, the intelligence correspondent for Yediot Aharonot newspaper, persuaded many agents of Mossad, Shin Bet and the military to tell their stories, some using their real names. The result is the first comprehensive look at Israel’s use of state-sponsored killings.

Based on 1,000 interviews and thousands of documents, and running more than 600 pages, Rise and Kill First makes the case that Israel has used assassination in the place of war, killing half a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists, for instance, rather than launching a military attack. It also strongly suggests that Israel used radiation poisoning to kill Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, an act its officials have consistently denied.

Bergman writes that Arafat’s death in 2004 fits a pattern and had advocates. But he steps back from flatly asserting what happened, saying that Israeli military censorship prevents him from revealing what – or if – he knows.

The book’s title, Rise and Kill First, comes from the ancient Jewish Talmud admonition, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” Bergman says a huge percentage of the people he interviewed cited that passage as justification for their work. So does an opinion by the military’s lawyer declaring such operations to be legitimate acts of war.

Despite the many interviews, including with former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, Bergman, the author of several books, says the Israeli secret services sought to interfere with his work, holding a meeting in 2010 on how to disrupt his research and warning former Mossad employees not to speak with him.

He says that while the U.S. has tighter constraints on its agents than does Israel, President George W. Bush adopted many Israeli techniques after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and President Barack Obama launched several hundred targeted killings.

“The command-and-control systems, the war rooms, the methods of information gathering and the technology of the pilotless aircraft, or drones, that now serve the Americans and their allies were all in large part developed in Israel,” Bergman writes.

The book gives a textured history of the personalities and tactics of the various secret services. In the 1970s, a new head of operations for Mossad opened hundreds of commercial companies overseas with the idea that they might be useful one day. For example, Mossad created a Middle Eastern shipping business that, years later, came in handy in providing cover for a team in the waters off Yemen.

There have been plenty of failures. After a Palestinian armed group killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israel sent agents to kill the perpetrators – and shot more than one misidentified man. There were also successful operations that did more harm than good to Israel’s policy goals, Bergman notes.

Bergman raises moral and legal concerns provoked by state-sponsored killing, including the existence of separate legal systems for secret agents and the rest of Israel. But he presents the operations, for the most part, as achieving their aims. While many credit the barrier Israel built along and inside the West Bank with stopping assaults on Israeli citizens in the early 2000s, he argues that what made the difference was “a massive number of targeted killings of [enemy] operatives.”

One of Bergman’s most important sources was Meir Dagan, a recent head of Mossad for eight years who died in early 2016. Toward the end of his career, Dagan fell out with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu partly over launching a military attack on Iran. Netanyahu said intelligence techniques such as selling the country faulty parts for its reactors – which Israel and the U.S. were doing – weren’t enough.

Dagan argued that these techniques, especially assassinations, would do the job. As Bergman quotes him saying, “In a car, there are 25,000 parts on average. Imagine if 100 of them are missing. It would be very hard to make it go. On the other hand, sometimes it’s most effective to kill the driver, and that’s that.”

Under President Obama’s watch, the Islamic State conquered a so-called caliphate the size of Ohio in Syria and Iraq. Luckily a new, “tough” president - Donald Trump - stepped in, loosed restrictions on his military, and, defeated the bad guys. At least that’s the popular story and the party line.

Of course, the ground-level truth is much messier.

If ISIS is so decisively and irreversibly defeated, how then to explain last week’s gruesome double-suicide bombing in Baghdad and expert warnings that up to 10,000 ISIS loyalists remain in Iraq and Syria?

The problem is that, even after 17 years of hard lessons to the contrary, most Americans - and administration spokespeople - insist on viewing ISIS as a linear, conventional threat. A quick look at color-coded Syria maps gives the obvious impression that ISIS as a conventional military force indeed has receded. Plentiful U.S. airstrikes, ample American advisory teams, and local Kurdish ground troops combined to devastate Islamic State’s fighters - which is a positive development.

Unfortunately, that may have been the easy part. Conventional destruction does not equate to total, ideological defeat. ISIS is as much idea as army, and such groups have proved remarkably resilient and capable of morphing into new, menacing manifestations.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis hinted at this, fearing the growth of “ISIS 2.0.” The thing is, we’re already fighting the second manifestation of Islamic State, which used to be called al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and reconstituted itself in U.S. prisons in that country. The next threat is actually ISIS 3.0.

Odds are ISIS leaders, fighters and sympathizers will go underground for a while — in both Iraq and Syria. They’ll keep up their slick media campaign, slowly reconstitute and continue to inspire terror attacks. But there’s something else: America’s regional military presence itself undoubtedly will fuel the Phoenix-like rise of ISIS 3.0.

The Islamic State’s worldview and ideological playbook consist of more than just Sunni chauvinism and jihadi interpretations of the Koran. A third key ingredient has always been virulent opposition to any Western military presence. What Americans view as advising and assisting, jihadis — and an uncomfortable number of like-minded sympathizers — see as occupation.

Trump supporters, most political conservatives and many military officers point to Obama’s supposedly hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 as the impetus for the rise of ISIS. That explanation was simplistic — and, in the case of candidate Trump claiming that Obama literally "founded ISIS,” bordered on the absurd.

Nevertheless, in the court of public opinion (especially among Republicans), the charges stuck. Premature withdrawal indeed can be a serious mistake, but there’s a flip side: Stay too long, and military assistance can resemble invasion or occupation. Notice how that’s rarely discussed.

It’s a tough balance to strike: applying sufficient U.S. military aid when necessary whilst not overstaying a (very brief) welcome. Sixteen full years of U.S. military occupations in the Greater Middle East and a 2003 Iraq regime change have simply tarnished the American brand regionally, perhaps beyond repair. So much so, in fact, that one could argue that any overt U.S. military action tends to be counterproductive. Maybe that’s hard to swallow in hyper-interventionist Washington, but it’s something sober strategists must seriously consider.

Each side of the border, in Iraq and Syria, presents its own challenges.

In Iraq, look for ISIS to dial up its bombing campaign in Baghdad, puncturing any hope for post-war normalcy in the capital. Then, unless Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s Shia-dominated regime shows restraint and embraces minorities, expect ISIS once again to exploit Sunni grievances. This would mean demobilizing Shia Popular Mobilization Forces, some Iranian-sponsored. That’s a big if.

In Syria, the risks resemble those of Iraq, only on steroids. Here ISIS remnants will seek to inspire an anti-Kurdish and, by extension, anti-U.S. insurgency in the Euphrates River valley and the country’s northeast. That likelihood increases the longer that thousands of U.S. soldiers and marines remain in Syria. And recent pronouncements from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary Mattis seem to indicate the United States will stay in Syria indefinitely.

Staying in north and east Syria means the U.S. military will own all that does or does not happen in the area — the good and the bad. An inadequate power grid: that’s on us. Drought and disease: that's our problem too. I’ve played this game before in Baghdad back in 2007. It rarely ends well. No matter how benevolent Americans view their motivations, the longer its military acts as a de facto occupation force, the more likely it is to fuel an insurgency — especially among Syria’s Sunni majority. ISIS will do all it can to exploit this vulnerability.

There’s one more huge risk in Syria, highlighted by Turkey’s recent ground invasion of Northern Syria. The Turks’ — a NATO ally! — attack on U.S.-allied Kurdish militias might lead to a genuine ethno-sectarian regional war. In that case, the United States would really be caught in the middle — and remember: ISIS, and similar Islamist groups, thrive amid such chaos. No matter how far the Turkish incursion escalates, ISIS most certainly will attempt to revamp and reconstitute under cover of a regional conflagration, just as al-Qaeda has in Yemen.

There are no easy answers in either Mesopotamia or Greater Syria. Which is why one hopes that the administration’s "adults in the room" are piloting the ship and asking the tough questions.

All signs point to what would be the worst possible outcome for U.S. troops and regional stability alike: hastily declaring victory but indefinitely maintaining U.S. troops on the ground. In that case, no amount of tough talk, courageous soldiering or skillful generalship will dodge the next regional insurgency. When Trump’s first term comes to a close, then the U.S. military would find itself traveling back to the future and entering its third decade of war — right back where it started.

* * *

Maj. Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer, a former history instructor at West Point, and served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,"Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge." Follow him on Twitter at@SkepticalVet.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

A mass of recent stories about white folk fearing the “browning” of the United States is doing rounds not only on social media, but in what passes for regular news networks. The accusations state that people voted for Trump because they are racist, because they don’t want more people with darker skin coming to the US. Not only is this idea wrong, it is politically motivated.

If you really want to know what American’s (and people in Europe) are afraid of, it’s not the “browning” of the nation, it is the flawed and often dangerous ideology that comes with some elements of mass-migration.

Take the UK for example. British newspapers are filled with stories of Islamophobia and racism against migrants (even second and third generation). You would think that Britain is one of the least welcoming places if you have dark skin. But the reality is something quite different.

British Indians are a classic example of how integration should work. With a population of over 1.4 million, they are the third largest demographic in the nation, and on almost every scale and metric do just as well (and better in some cases) than those identifying as Native White British. They are just as likely to own their own home, just as likely to be employed, and do very well in terms of achieving higher education.

How much anti-Indian hate crime do you think is reported in the UK? Well it’s virtually zero. You also don’t see angry Tweets, nasty facebook posts, or any of the other associated nonsense you would expect from people who are described as “racist” and “xenophobic.” Why is this?

Could it be that British Indians have basically the same politics and culture and values as that of the native Brit? Politically, it seems so.

Unlike many other demographics, British Indians (Brindians?) aren’t targeted for votes the same way other minority groups are. There is no such thing as “The Block Indian Vote” in the UK. Indians, much like White Brits vote any way they please, based on economics, geographic location, and preference of policies.

Could this be one of the reasons that almost no one (except those on the very fringes of society) object to Indian migration?

The native White Brit does not fear the “browning” of the nation. They (quite rightly) fear the destruction of culture that can occur when people with radically different views arrive en-masse and have the right to vote to change the nation irrevocably.

It is not the color of people that is the issue, it is radical views.

When idiots in news rooms seek to make the argument against mass-migration form 3rd world nations about race, they do us all a disservice. They are dismissing a very real point of view, and in fact, putting all immigrants into one category of people, which they are not (oddly enough, to put all immigrants in one category like that smacks of racism).

We all welcome people who have similar views to ourselves. With them, we can rest easy about the future we are leaving to our children. Is it so wrong to want your children to experience the enjoyment and relative safety (and more importantly, the rights) that we have enjoyed? This is not, and never has been about the color of a person’s skin…It is about the content of their character.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Congratulations you two, you have caught my attention.. see you tomorrow..

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

As you can see.. it's not just Apple that's been at it.. slowing down phones via updates to force an upgrade.. only problem for Samsung is the Note 4 has a removable battery! Apples excuse just won't cut it.. moral corruption exposed in all it's glory..

One month after a firestorm swept across Apple community when a conspiracy theory that Apple had been throttling its older iPhone was confirmed, moments ago Bloomberg reported that the DOJ and the SEC have launched a probe whether Apple violated securities laws concerning its disclosures about a software update that slowed older iPhone models.

According to the report, the government has requested information from the company, although the inquiry is said to be in its early stages, and it’s too soon to conclude any enforcement will follow.

The probe comes several weeks after Apple admitted to slowing down the performance of older iPhones models as a way to make their internal batteries last longer.

This is the first full day of running the Wakelock app on my Note 4. Since I have installed this app, I have not had one issue with the phone, not one. The difference from before and after installing Wakelock is like night and day. I went from not being able to use the Note 4 without experiencing a reboot or super slow operation for anything I used the smartphone for to NORMAL operation now. I will continue to update this thread.

Do I think this is a solution for the problems with my Note 4? Absolutely not! Samsung should be treating these issues with their phones as a top priority. Selling a product that is touted as a world class piece of technology to people and then not providing support for their customers is unconscionable. Samsung, please address these problems.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Richard Edmonds' Speech -- "Truth & Honour of the 'Holocaust'" Delivered to the South West Forum in Bristol

On Saturday, 27th January I gave a speech at the all-Nationalist South West Forum held in the Bristol area. Here is the summary of my talk which was filmed and may be viewed on the internet at the: London Forum-Youtube. Truth and Honour or the “Holocaust”, by Richard Edmonds

​

Speaking at a meeting of the South West Forum held in Bristol on the 27th. January 2018, Richard Edmonds said that in contemporary Britain it is only at meeting such as this that you are going to find Truth, Honour and Decency; there is little Truth, Honour or Decency to be found in the Establishment parties at Westminster, whether Tory, Labour or Liberal-Democrat, they are essentially all the same and with little to be proud of.>> I wish to speak here of those British soldiers and officials who were murdered by Jewish terrorists in the years during and after the Second World War in the bloody Zionist campaign to establish the State of Israel. You will remember that we met in Bristol last year to pay tribute to the two young British soldiers, Sergeant Mevyn Paice and Sergeant Clifford Martin who were kidnapped, tortured and strangled and their booby-trapped corpses left for their mates to find them. Sergeant Paice was a son of Bristol and a group of us visited the local church, St. Mary's of Stoke Bishop, where there is simple plaque to his memory, where we laid a wreathe.>> The Second World War had not even ended when Jewish-Zionist terrorists launched their murderous bombing campaign against Britain. This country had fought six long years to defeat Adolf Hitler and troops such as Sergeants Paice and Martin together with their comrades-in-arms had survived the war and were no doubt looking forward to the Peace. Then came the stab in the back.>> Earlier this month a number of us attended a hearing of the on-going trial taking place at Westminster Magistrates' Court of the very brave Alison Chabloz, where she has effectively been charged with “Holocaust”-revisionism in a prosecution that originally a private Jewish-Zionist organisation had been permitted to bring against her. I'm pleased to report that the public gallery was packed out with Alison's supporters and well-wishers; all the time that I was sitting there in that court I had in mind the cruel and dreadful fate that Zionist terrorists had inflicted on those two British Army sergeants.>> The Zionist terror campaign to establish the State of Israel did not wait for the War to end. In November 1944, Jewish terrorists murdered the British government's top representative in the Middle East, Lord Moyne based in Cairo. That was the start of the bloody and treacherous campaign to drive the British out of their Mandate and out of Palestine. Jewish terrorists murdered hundreds of British soldiers and officials including the victims, military and civilian, of dastardly bombing of the British Army' head-quarters at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem. The Jewish terror campaign was not limited to the Middle East, Zionist terrorists committed their murders and bomb-outrages here in the United Kingdom. Even Britain's Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin was not spared: a parcel bomb was mailed to him personally, but fortunately the explosive device was recognised and de-activated. No Briton was to be spared, from the top to brave soldiers known only to their mates and loved ones, none were to be spared. As the American-Jewish film producer, Ben Hecht said, “I have a holiday in my heart every time a British solders is killed.” One can say here: Jewish pay-back for Britain's role in the defeat of Adolf Hitler.>> Under these circumstances and knowing all the facts of the Zionist terror campaign against our troops, no decent Briton would call themselves, Friends of Israel. However contrary to all decency, Israel has many friends in high places in contemporary Britain. For example, Mrs. Teresa May, our Prime Minister, recently celebrated the anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel in a speech, and I quote: “Today we celebrate the founding of the State of Israel and we pay our respects to those who fought so hard for it...we remember the sacrifice of those who fought to set up the State of Israel.” She is lauding, praising the Jewish-Zionist terrorists who murdered our soldiers. Mrs May is amongst those who officially describe themselves as Friends of Israel. The modern Houses of Parliament are full of the Friends of Israel. Look them up on the inter-net. There is the Conservative party Friends of Israel: Mrs. May is a member so is the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, and many, many more. According to the journalist, Peter Obourne, some eighty percent of Tory MPs are members of the Friends of Israel. But it doesn't end there. Look up the Labour party Friends of Israel. They are all there: Friends of Israel, but not friends of Britain. Look up the Liberal-Democrat Friends of Israel: they are all there, just as you would expect. But one name that you will not find listed amongst the Friends of Israel is the name of the Leader of Her Majesty's official Opposition in the House of Commons: Jeremy Corbyn. When recently the Israeli Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited Britain Corbyn refused to meet him. Interesting times, eh ?>> British politicians have grovelled to the Zionist lobby for as hundred years now. In 1917, at the height of the First World War, Britain's Foreign Minster, the Tory politician Arthur Balfour signed his notorious Balfour Declaration that promised Lord Rothschild that British troops would fight and drive the Turks out of Palestine in order that Lord Rothschild's Zionist ambitions to set up a National Home for the Jewish people in the Holy Land, could be satisfied. I continue: a short twenty years later and Britain is at war with the Jews' opponent and antagonist, Adolf Hitler, and the only justification for that second mindless slaughter of Britain's and Europe's best, is the so-called “Holocaust”, the allegation that the Germans murdered millions of Jews during the Second World War. This allegation was confirmed to be a propaganda-lie thirty years ago, when the then world-acknowledged expert authority on the “Holocaust”, Professor Dr. Raul Hilberg of the University of Vermont, USA, stated under oath in his capacity as an expert witness at a trial in Canada in 1985, that there was no forensic, scientific or objective evidence to substantiate the allegation. Dr. Hilberg gave his expertise at the trial of the German-Canadian “Holocaust” revisionist, Ernst Zundel.>> The man who in the late 1930s observed the baleful influence of the Zionist lobby over British politicians was Arnold Leese. During the First War, Arnold Leese had served as an Army officer in the Middle East. Leese predicted the coming nightmare in the Middle East in his booklet, “Devilry in the Holy Land” published in 1938. Leese was incarcerated under regulation 18b for his opposition to the Second World War, which he denounced as a war fought only for Jewish interests.>> So where are we now ? ,in this not so happy Britain in the year of our Lord, 2018. Answer: the massed ranks of the politicians of the Friends of Israel at Westminster have decided that a memorial to the so-called “Holocaust” is to be erected in the very centre of our capital at the most sacred and secular, religious, historical and political site in our country. This memorial to the alleged six million murdered Jews is to consist of a set of massive concrete slabs to be erected in Victoria Tower Gardens, the tiny piece of public green space beside the Houses of Parliament and close to Westminster Abbey, adjacent the river Thames. A thousand years of English and British history has played out at this site which is now to be dominated by a monstrous collection of concrete blocs, dedicated to an event that the rational mind knows did not take place.

So where are we now ? We are under the baleful influence of the present political clique in charge of Britain's destiny, the Friends of Israel.> F I N I S

Imperialism – which today is usually referred to by the euphemism ‘liberal interventionism’ – went on Trial at the Waterside Theatre in Derry, Northern Ireland this week.

Five passionate and well-informed speakers, who included the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, detailed the carnage and chaos that has been unleashed around the globe by the aggressive, warmongering policies of the US and its closest allies.

The event could have been called ‘War on Trial.’ It might have been called ‘Regime Change on Trial.’ Or ‘Economic Sanctions on Trial.’ But it was – thanks to organizer Gregory Sharkey – called ‘Imperialism on Trial’ and, as the first speaker, the writer and broadcaster John Wight declared, that in itself was highly significant.

For the truth is the ‘I’ word is the elephant in the room in contemporary discourse. We’re not supposed to acknowledge its existence. Imperialism, according to the dominant Establishment narrative, ended when the European empires gave their colonies independence in the 1950s and 60s. In fact, the ‘old’ imperialism was only replaced by a new variant which is even more destructive, and certainly more dishonest. At least the British Empire admitted it was an empire.

Today’s US-led neoliberal empire, which has Britain as its junior partner, does no such thing. Entire countries have been destroyed, with millions killed, and it’s been done under a ‘progressive’ banner trumpeting concern for ‘human rights’ and ‘enhancing freedoms.’

In an electrifying address, Wight lambasted the pro-imperial propaganda to which we are relentlessly subjected to in the West. How absurd is it, he asked, that NATO troops are on Russia’s borders, while Russian troops have been fighting in Syria the same ISIS/Al-Qaeda terrorist groups who have been killing British citizens back home? Citing Marx, Wight reminded the audience of how the ideas of the ruling class become the dominant ideas, and the demonization of Russia is a classic example of this. Ordinary Britons don’t regard Putin as a ‘threat’ as they go about their daily business, but they do – rightly – regard the terrorist groups that Russia has been fighting as a danger to them. But the ruling class hate Russia because it has thwarted its imperial ambitions.

Wight said that opponents of imperialism should never go on the back foot when confronted by supporters of criminal wars of aggression, such as the Iraq War – which has led to the deaths of around 1 million people and the rise of ISIS. He mentioned that these people hate the fact that there are now alternative media channels such as RT which challenge the dominant neocon/neoliberal narrative.

“Alternative media and those who go on it are under attack because they have the temerity to ask the most subversive question in the English language which is: Why? Why did we go to war in Iraq? Why are there sanctions on Cuba? Why are we going after Iran but are close friends with the Saudis? This question is so powerful. We are attacked because we ask the question, why? I am reminded of the African proverb that until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. Now with the alternative media, the lions have their historians. We can put the case for the Syrian people; we can put the case for the Venezuelan people; we can put the case why Russia should not be our enemy.”

Speaking next, Peter Ford, the former British Ambassador to Syria and Bahrain, drew on his firsthand experience of many years as a diplomat and UN official based in the Middle East, to explain the current geopolitical situation.

“People who are not regular readers of the Morning Star might be forgiven for thinking that imperialism ended when the colonies became free. Nothing could be further from the truth. We now have a new more insidious but more powerful form of imperialism – one which hides behinds words in order to extend its hegemony. Expressions like ‘protecting our allies,’ ‘countering weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘defending human rights’ – and this one applies as much to the left as the right.”

“We on the left have to be particularly alert to ‘liberal interventionism’: this is actually the new version of ‘carrying the white man’s burden,” Ford continued. “In each case we are intervening in less developed parts of the world which are generally not able to strike back. Consider the appalling war in Yemen – one of the poorest and weakest countries in the world. It used to be a British colony but independence has not made it free. When the Yemenis dared to get rid of their pro-Saudi government, the Saudis, with British and American backing, started bombing and blockading Yemen. Conditions under siege and bombardment have led to a terrible epidemic of cholera.”

Any genuine humanitarians would be greatly concerned with the dire situation in Yemen, but guess what? The ‘liberal interventionists’ who egged on ‘humanitarian interventions’ elsewhere have been silent.

Looking at the global picture, Ford described how the US Empire operates.

“The Americans have nearly 800 bases around the world, spread over about 70 countries and territories. You show me a country with an American base and I’ll show you a de facto colony or vassal state. It’s almost mediaeval: You have to pay homage to the sovereign – America. That is our (the British) condition today. We are equivalent to a vassal state,” he said.

In my address, I stressed how important it was to see the US-led attacks, interventions and destabilization campaigns against sovereign states of the past 20 years as part of the same war, one waged for total global domination. Independent, resource-rich countries usually with socialist/socialistic governments and economies which weren’t controlled by global corporations, have been targeted, one-by-one. In each case, the leaders of the countries concerned were relentlessly demonized. They were called dictators, even though in the case of Hugo Chavez and Slobodan Milosevic they had won numerous democratic elections and operated in countries where opposition parties freely operated.

The ‘target states’ were subject to draconian sanctions which created economic hardship and a ‘pressure cooker’ environment, which usually resulted in street protests against the government, egged on by the US. The governments were then told ‘the world is watching you’ and ordered not to respond, even when violence was used by protestors. The same strategy was deployed in Yugoslavia in 2000, Ukraine in 2014, and Venezuela in 2017. In Afghanistan and Iraq, we had a full-scale invasion (based on the ‘fake news’ that Saddam possessed WMDs) and in Libya (and Yugoslavia) a NATO bombing campaign.

There has been endless war for the past twenty years and it won’t end until we understand what’s been going on and demand a new foreign policy in place of the current racist one which holds that the US and its closest allies have the right to say who should or shouldn’t be in charge of other countries, but denies the same rights to the ‘inferior’ countries targeted.

Intrepid journalist Eva Bartlett, who had travelled all the way from Canada, came next and began by describing her experiences in the DPRK, another country that’s under threat of attack from the US.

“Many people believe that what is happening in North Korea is about a madman with a bad haircut and an itchy finger on the nuclear button. But no, it’s not about Trump,” she said to laughter from the hall.

Bartlett told how we’re encouraged to see North Korea as a threat but no context is usually given, nor is there mention of the utter devastation caused by US bombing back in the 1950s. Down the decades, there have been regular threats from leading US figures to obliterate North Korea.

“What the North Koreans are doing is defending themselves,” Bartlett said.

Having seen what has happened to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted by the US in recent years, who can possibly blame them?

In addition to visiting the DPRK in 2017, Bartlett has also been to Syria seven times since the conflict started there in 2011. She described her experiences in the country and explained how the situation on the ground was often very different from the dominant imperialist narrative which holds the Syrian government and President Assad responsible for every evil. She gave as an example the liberation of eastern Aleppo from terrorists in December 2016, which was portrayed as a terrible thing by much of the Western media and the political establishment.

“Corporate media described Aleppo as falling, while Syrians were celebrating the full liberation of the city and Christians were able to celebrate Christmas for the first time in years,” she said.

The final speaker of the evening was the legendary George Galloway who dazzled us with his oratory, humor, and sheer bloody brilliance. Galloway quoted Dr. Samuel Johnson, saying that “the grimmest dictatorship of them all is the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy. And that’s the dictatorship under which we live. We can argue about the color of the paint on the walls of Westminster, but on the things that really matter the parameters are very narrow. Neoliberal economics and neoconservative imperialist politics abroad – that’s the prevailing orthodoxy. So anyone who challenges it must by definition be portrayed as – and turned into – an outlaw. Isn’t that the world in which we live?”

Reminding people on the pivotal role the Soviet Red Army had played in the defeat of the Nazis, he declared “we live in an era where we’re encouraged to hate and fear Russia. But I will never, ever hate Russia and remain silent while others generate hate against her.”

At time of writing the video of Imperialism on Trial on the RTUK Facebook page

has had 35K views. The event was such a success that a ‘Roadshow’ is already being planned. The ‘I word’ needs to be openly discussed. Because if we don’t speak out forcefully and fearlessly against modern imperialism, and call it out for what it is, we could well be heading for Armageddon.

Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

The torrent of reckless false accusations against Russia made by the US and its NATO allies is hitting warp speed.

This week saw more baseless allegations of Russian cyber attacks on American elections and British industries.

There were also crass claims by US officials that Russia was behind so-called sonic attacks on American diplomats in Cuba.

Then a Dutch foreign minister was forced to resign after he finally admitted telling lies for the past two years over alleged Russian plans for regional aggression.

Elsewhere, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson claimed this week during a tour of the Middle East that “the primary goal” of his nation’s involvement in Syria is “to defeat” Islamic State (Daesh) terrorism.

This is patently false given that the US forces illegally occupying parts of Syria are launching lethal attacks on Syrian armed forces who are actually fighting Islamic State and their myriad terrorist affiliates.

Meanwhile, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley accused Russia of blocking peace efforts in Syria – another audacious falsehood to add to her thick compendium of calumny.

Perhaps the most barefaced falsehood transpired this week when French President Emmanuel Macron candidly admitted that his government did not have any proof of chemical weapons being used in Syria.

“Today, our agencies, our armed forces have not established that chemical weapons, as set out in treaties, have been used against the civilian population,” said Macron to media in Paris.

His admission follows that of US Defense Secretary James Mattis who also fessed up earlier this month to having no evidence of chemical weapons being deployed in Syria.

“We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used,” said Mattis to reporters at the Pentagon. “We do not have evidence of it.”

Yet, only a few weeks ago, the French and US government were condemning Syrian President Assad for alleged use of chemical weapons by his forces. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also accused Russia of bearing responsibility because of its alliance with Damascus.

But now we are told that the French and US governments do not, in fact, have any evidence concerning chemical weapons in Syria.

This is in spite of US President Donald Trump unleashing over 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Arab country last April in purported reprisal for the “Syrian regime” dropping chemical munitions on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib Province on April 4 2o17.

Macron went on to make the absurd declaration this week that “if” chemical weapons were found to be used then he would order military strikes on Syria.

Both Syria and Russia have categorically and repeatedly rejected claims of using chemical weapons, pointing out that Syria’s stockpile was eliminated back in 2014 under a UN-brokered deal.

When Mattis said “we have reports from the battlefield” he was referring to groups like the CIA covertly-sponsored terrorist outfit Al Nusra Front and their media outlet, the so-called White Helmets.

Western news media footage over the past two weeks seemingly depicting Syrian and Russian air strikes on civilian areas is sourced from the White Helmets. This group is embedded with Al Nusra.

The same warped narrative claiming Syrian and Russian violations during the liberation of Aleppo from the terrorists at the end of 2016 is being played out again in East Ghouta and Idlib. And again the Western news media are amplifying the dubious propaganda from the likes of the White Helmets as if it is independent, verified information.

This week in Paris Abdulrahman Almawwas, the so-called vice president of the White Helmets, which also go by the name of Syria Civil Defense, told the Reuters news agency that France and other NATO powers must intervene in Syria.

“It’s time to take real action and not just talk about red lines,” said Almawwas, who was clearly disappointed after hearing Macron’s admission of no evidence for chemical weapons.

Tellingly, the White Helmets’ envoy was hosted by senior French government officials while in Paris, including Macron’s chief diplomatic advisor, according to Reuters.

He also went on to complain – unwittingly – that the White Helmets have received less funding from foreign governments this year compared with last year.

Reuters reported: “Almawwas said the group’s financing for 2018 from foreign governments [sic] had dropped to $12 million from $18 million a year earlier.”

According to the White Helmets’ own website, the foreign governments whom they receive financing from include: the United States, Britain, France, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Canada, among others.

In other words, this so-called humanitarian relief organization is a NATO-sponsored entity, which evidently operates freely in areas of Syria controlled by Al Nusra and other internationally proscribed terror groups.

And this is the same “source” which has been used by the NATO governments and Western news media to disseminate claims about Syrian state forces using chemical weapons against civilians – claims which senior US and French officials are now belatedly negating.

What we have here is demonstrable peddling of falsehoods and lies by Western governments and their news media.

Not just with regard to the war in Syria, but on a range of other international incendiary issues, as noted above.

Accusing Russia of aggression, nuclear threats, sabotaging elections, targeting civilian infrastructure which could “kill thousands and thousands” (British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson last month), or any number of other wild allegations, is symptomatic of sociopathic lying by Western governments.

The reckless falsehoods and lies espoused by the US and its European allies are made possible because of the reprehensible servility of Western media not holding to account the wild claims that they willfully disseminate.

This relentless propagation of lies is an appalling incitement to tensions, conflict and war.

Engaging in war fever is not only irresponsible. It is in fact a war crime, according to Nuremberg legal standards.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is for the committed Jew as much a record of his ancient origins, the prism through which all Jewish history is interpreted (is not the “Holocaust” a biblical term?), and the unalterable pattern of Israel’s promising future. That is why the Bible, once the “portable fatherland” of the Diaspora Jews as Heinrich Heine put it, remains at the core of the national narrative of the Jewish State, whose founding fathers did not give it any other Constitution.

It is true that the earliest prophets of political Zionism — Moses Hess (Rome and Jerusalem, 1862), Leon Pinsker (Auto-Emancipation, 1882) and Theodor Herzl (The Jewish State, 1896) — did not draw their inspiration from the Bible, but rather from the great nationalist spirit that swept through Europe at the end of the 19th century. Pinsker and Herzl actually cared little whether the Jews colonized Palestine or any other region of the globe; the first thought about some land in North America, while the second contemplated Argentina and later Uganda. More important still than nationalism, what drove these intellectual pioneers was the persistence of Judeophobia or anti-Semitism: Pinsker, who was from Odessa, converted during the pogroms that followed the assassination of Alexander II; Herzl, at the height of the Dreyfus affair.

Nevertheless, by naming his movement “Zionism,” Herzl himself was plugging it into biblical mythology: Zion is a name used for Jerusalem by biblical prophets. And after Herzl, the founders of the Yishuv (Jewish communities settled in Palestine before 1947) and later of the Jewish State were steeped in the Bible. From their point of view, Zionism was the logical and necessary end of biblical Yahwism. “The Bible is our mandate,” Chaim Weizmann declared at the Peace Conference in Versailles in 1920, and David Ben-Gurion has made clear that he only accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan as a temporary step toward the goal of biblical borders. In Ben-Gurion, Prophet of fire (1983), the biography of the man described as “the personification of the Zionist dream,” Dan Kurzman entitles each chapter with a Bible quote. The preface begins like this:

“The life of David Ben-Gurion is more than the story of an extraordinary man. It is the story of a Biblical prophecy, an eternal dream. […] Ben-Gurion was, in a modern sense, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, a messiah who felt he was destined to create an exemplary Jewish state, a ‘light unto the nations’ that would help to redeem all mankind.”

For Ben-Gurion, Kurzman writes, the rebirth of Israel in 1948 “paralleled the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the land by Joshua, the Maccabean revolt.” Yet Ben-Gurion had never been to the synagogue, and ate pork for breakfast. According to the rabbi leading the Bible study group that he attended, Ben-Gurion “unconsciously believed he was blessed with a spark from Joshua’s soul.” “There can be no worthwhile political or military education about Israel without profound knowledge of the Bible,” he used to say.[1] He wrote in his diary in 1948, ten days after declaring independence, “We will break Transjordan [Jordan], bomb Amman and destroy its army, and then Syria falls, and if Egypt will still continue to fight — we will bombard Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo,” then he adds: “This will be in revenge for what they did to our forefathers during biblical times.”[2] Three days after the Israeli invasion of the Sinai in 1956, he declared before the Knesset that what was at stake was “the restoration of the kingdom of David and Solomon.”[3]

Ben-Gurion’s attachment to the Bible was shared by almost every Zionist leader of his generation and the next. Moshe Dayan, the military hero of the 1967 Six Day War, wrote a book entitled Living with the Bible (1978) in which he justified the annexation of new territory by the Bible. More recently, Israeli Education minister Naftali Bennett, a proponent of full-scale annexation of the West Bank, did the same.[4]

Zionism is biblical by ideology, but also in practice. As Avigail Abarbanel wrote, the Zionist conquerors of Palestine “have been following quite closely the biblical dictate to Joshua to just walk in and take everything. […] For a supposedly non-religious movement it’s extraordinary how closely Zionism […] has followed the Bible.”[5] The paradox is only apparent, because for Zionists, the Bible is not a religious text, but a textbook of history. And so it should be obvious to anybody paying attention that Israel’s behavior on the international scene cannot be understood without a deep inquiry into the Bible’s underlying ideology.

Prophecies and geopolitics

Only by taking account of the biblical roots of Zionism can one understand why Zionism has never been a nationalist movement like others. It could not be, as Gilad Atzmon remarked, from the moment it defined itself as a Jewish movement, aimed at creating a “Jewish state”.[6] Jewish exceptionalism is a biblical concept that has no equivalent in any other ethnic or religious culture.

Neither can Zionism be correctly assessed as a form of colonialism, despite Jabotinsky’s effort to do so. For colonialism seeks not to expel the natives, but to exploit them. If Zionism is colonialism, it can only be in the sense of the colonization of the world by Israel, according to the program laid out by Isaiah:

“The riches of the sea will flow to you, the wealth of the nations come to you” (60:5);

“You will suck the milk of nations, you will suck the wealth of kings” (60:16);

“You will feed on the wealth of nations, you will supplant them in their glory” (61:5-6);

“For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you will perish, and the nations will be utterly destroyed” (60:12)

Christians find hope in Isaiah that, some day, all peoples “will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles. Nations will not lift sword against nation, no longer will they learn how to make war” (Isaiah 2:4). But more important to Zionists are the previous verses, which describe these messianic times as a Pax Judaica, when “all the nations” will pay tribute “to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the god of Jacob,” when “the Law will issue from Zion and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem,” so that Yahweh will “judge between the nations and arbitrate between many peoples.”

No wonder Isaiah is the biblical prophet most often quoted by Zionists. In a statement published in the magazine Look on January 16, 1962, Ben-Gurion predicted for the next 25 years:

“All armies will be abolished, and there will be no more wars. In Jerusalem, the United Nations (a truly United Nations) will build a Shrine of the Prophets to serve the federated union of all continents; this will be the seat of the Supreme Court of Mankind, to settle all controversies among the federated continents, as prophesied by Isaiah.”[7]

The launching of the Iraq War was a decisive step toward that goal of a new world order headquartered in Jerusalem. It was the context for a “Jerusalem Summit” held in October 2003 in the highly symbolic King David Hotel, to seal an alliance between Jewish and Christian Zionists. The “Jerusalem Declaration” signed by its participants declared Jerusalem “the key to the harmony of civilizations,” replacing the United Nations that had become “a tribalized confederation hijacked by Third World dictatorships”:

“Jerusalem’s spiritual and historical importance endows it with a special authority to become a center of world’s unity. [. . .] We believe that one of the objectives of Israel’s divinely-inspired rebirth is to make it the center of the new unity of the nations, which will lead to an era of peace and prosperity, foretold by the Prophets.”

Three acting Israeli ministers spoke at the summit, including Benjamin Netanyahu. Richard Perle, the guest of honor, received on this occasion the Henry Scoop Jackson Award.[8]

When Israeli leaders claim that their vision of the global future is based on the (Hebrew) Bible, we should take them seriously and study the Bible. It might help, for example, to know that according to Deuteronomy Yahweh plans to deliver to Israel “seven nations greater and mightier than [it],” adding: “you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them. You shall not make marriages with them…” (7:1-2). As for the kings of these seven nations, “you shall make their name perish from under heaven” (7:24). The destruction of the “Seven Nations,” also mentioned in Joshua 24:11, is considered a mitzvah in rabbinic Judaism, included by the great Maimonides in his Book of Commandments,[9] and it has remained a popular motif in Jewish culture, known to every Israeli school child.

It is also part of the Neocon agenda for World War IV (as Norman Podhoretz names the current global conflict in World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, 2007). General Wesley Clark, former commandant of NATO in Europe, wrote in his book Winning Modern Wars (2003), and repeated in numerous occasions, that one month after September 11, 2001, as he was paying a visit to Paul Wolfowitz, a Pentagon general showed him a memo “that describes how we’re gonna take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and finishing off with Iran.”[10] In his September 20, 2001 speech, President Bush also targeted seven “rogue states”, but included Cuba and North Korea instead of Lebanon and Somalia. The likely explanation to that discrepancy is that Bush or his entourage refused to include Lebanon and Somalia, but that the number seven was retained for its symbolic value, as an encrypted signature. Without question, the neocons who were writing Bush’s war agenda were Zionists of the most fanatical and Machiavellian kind. But the neocon viper’s nest is not the only place to look for crypto-Zionists infiltrated in the highest spheres of US foreign and military affairs. Consider, for example, that Wesley Clark is the son of Benjamin Jacob Kanne and the proud descendant of a lineage of rabbis. It is hard to believe that he never heard about the Bible’s “seven nations”? Is Clark himself, together with the Amy Goodmans who interviewed him, trying to write history in biblical terms, while blaming these wars on the Pentagon’s warmongers? What’s going on, here?

A lesson from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah

To understand how the crypto-Zionists have hijacked the Empire’s military power into proxy wars, a lesson can be learned from Book of Ezra and its sequel, the Book of Nehemiah. At the time of Ezra, the imperial power was Persia. After the Persians had conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, some of the exiles and their descendants (42,360 people with their 7,337 servants and 200 male and female singers, according to Ezra 2:64-67) returned to Jerusalem under the protection of King Cyrus, with the project of rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus begins the Book of Ezra:

“Yahweh roused the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to issue a proclamation and to have it publicly displayed throughout his kingdom: ‘Cyrus king of Persia says this, Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a temple in Jerusalem, in Judah.’” (Ezra 1:1-2).

For acting on behalf of Yahweh, Cyrus is bestowed the title of God’s “Anointed” (Mashiah) in Isaiah 45:1.

“Thus says Yahweh to his anointed one, to Cyrus whom, he says, I have grasped by his right hand, to make the nations bow before him and to disarm kings: […] It is for the sake of my servant Jacob and of Israel my chosen one, that I have called you by your name, have given you a title though you do not know me. […] Though you do not know me, I have armed you.” (Isaiah 45:1-5)

A succeeding Persian emperor, Darius, confirmed Cyrus’ edict, authorizing the rebuilding of the Temple, and ordering gigantic burnt offerings financed by “the royal revenue.” Anyone resisting the new theocratic power backed by Persia, “a beam is to be torn from his house, he is to be impaled on it and his house is to be reduced to a rubbish-heap for his offense” (Ezra 6:11). Then another Persian king, Artaxerxes, is supposed to have granted Ezra authority to lead “all members of the people of Israel in my kingdom, including their priests and Levites, who freely choose to go to Jerusalem,” and to rule over “the whole people of Trans-Euphrates [district encompassing all territories West to the Euphrates]” (7:11-26). In 458 BCE, the priest Ezra went from Babylon to Jerusalem, accompanied by some 1,500 followers. Carrying with him the newly redacted Torah, Ezra called himself the “Secretary of the Law of the God of heaven” (7:21). He was soon joined by Nehemiah, a Persian court official of Judean origin.

The edicts of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes are fake. No historian believe them authentic. But the fact that Persian kings granted to a clan of wealthy Levites legal authority for establishing a theocratic semi-autonomous state in Palestine seems historical. What did these proto-Zionists give the Persian kings in return? The Bible does not say, but historians believe that the Judeans exiles in Babylon had won the favor of the Persians by conspiring to help them conquer the city.[11]

What is of interest in this biblical narrative is the blueprint for the Zionist strategy of influencing the Empire’s foreign policy for its own advantage. In the late 19th century, the empire was British. Its foreign policy in the Middle East was largely shaped by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Born in a family of Marranos converted back to Judaism in Venice, Disraeli can be considered a forerunner of Zionism, since, well before Theodor Herzl, he tried to include the “restoration of Israel” in the Berlin Congress’ agenda, and hoped to convince the Ottoman Sultan to concede to Palestine as an autonomous Jewish province. He failed, but succeeded in putting the Suez Canal under British control, through funding from his friend Lionel Rothschild (an operation which also consolidated the Rothschilds’ control over the Bank of England). That was the first step in binding British interest and fate to the Middle-East[12]. In short, Disraeli was a modern-day Ezra or Nehemiah, capable of steering the Empire’s policy according to the Jewish agenda of the conquest of Palestine, a dream he had cherished ever since his first trip to Palestine in 1830, at the age of 26, and which he had expressed through the hero of his first novel, The Wondrous Tale of Alroy:

“My wish is a national existence which we have not. My wish is the Land of Promise and Jerusalem and the Temple, all we forfeited, all we have yearned after, all for which we have fought, our beauteous country, our holy creed, our simple manners, and our ancient customs.”

A quarter of a century after Disraeli, Theodor Herzl also failed to convince the Sultan. It therefore became necessary that the Ottoman Empire disappear and the cards be redistributed. Zionists then played the British against the Ottomans and, by means now well-documented, obtained from the former the Balfour Declaration (in fact a mere letter addressed by Secretary of State Arthur Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild). But when the British started to limit Jewish immigration in Palestine in the 1930s, the Zionists turned to the rising new Imperial power: the United States. Today, the stranglehold of Zionists on US imperial policy is such that a few Jewish neocons can pull the US into a series of wars against Israel’s enemies with a single false flag attack.

The capacity of Israel to hijack the Empire’s foreign and military policy requires that a substantial Jewish elite remain in the US. Even Israel’s survival is entirely dependent on the influence of the Zionist power complex in the United States (euphemistically called the “pro-Israel lobby”). That is also a lesson learnt from Ezra and Nehemiah’s time: Nehemiah himself retained his principal residence in Babylone and, for centuries after, the kingdom of Israel was virtually ruled by the Babylonian exiles. After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, Babylon remained the center of universal Judaism. The comparison was made by Jacob Neusner in A History of the Jews in Babylonia (1965), and by Max Dimont in Jews, God and History (1962). The American Jews who prefer to remain in the United States rather than emigrating to Israel are, Dimont argued, as essential to the community as the Babylonian Jews who declined the invitation to return to Palestine in the Persian era:

“Today, as once before, we have both an independent State of Israel and the Diaspora. But, as in the past, the State of Israel today is a citadel of Judaism, a haven of refuge, the center of Jewish nationalism where dwell only two million of the world’s twelve million Jews. The Diaspora, although it has shifted its center through the ages with the rise and fall of civilizations, still remains the universal soul of Judaism.”[13]

Conclusion

In the words of the Zionists themselves, including Herzl himself, Zionism was supposed to be the “final solution” to the Jewish question[14]. In 1947, the whole world hoped that it would be, except for Arab leaders who warned against it. But Israel’s existence has only resulted in changing the “Jewish question” into the “Zionist question”: the question about the true ambitions of Israel. Part of the answer is to be found in the Hebrew Bible. The Zionist question is the Biblical question. Zionists themselves tell us so. Their mouths are full of the Bible.

On March 3, 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dramatized in front of the American Congress his deep phobia of Iran by referring to the biblical Book of Esther (the only Bible story that makes no mention of God, incidently). It is worth quoting the heart of his rhetorical appeal to a US strike against Iran:

“We’re an ancient people. In our nearly 4,000 years of history, many have tried repeatedly to destroy the Jewish people. Tomorrow night, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, we’ll read the Book of Esther. We’ll read of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. But a courageous Jewish woman, Queen Esther, exposed the plot and gave for the Jewish people the right to defend themselves against their enemies. The plot was foiled. Our people were saved. Today the Jewish people face another attempt by yet another Persian potentate to destroy us.”[15]

Netanyahu managed to schedule his address to the Congress on the eve of Purim, which celebrates the happy end of the Book of Esther — the slaughter of 75,000 Persians, women and children included. This typical speech by the head of the State of Israel is clear indication that the behavior of that nation on the international scene cannot be understood without a deep inquiry into the Bible’s underlying ideology. Such is the main objective of my new book, From Yahweh to Zion: Jealous God, Chosen People, Promised Land … Clash of Civilizations, translated by Kevin Barrett.

May those who still want to believe that Zionism has nothing to do with the Bible think twice. Even the nuclear policy of Israel has a biblical name: the Samson Option.[16] And let them read the Prophets:

“And this is the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the nations who have fought against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet; their eyes will rot in their sockets; their tongues will rot in their mouths.” (Zechariah 14:12)

Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Secretive conspiracies to topple governments and murder politicians are nearly as old as civilization itself. These schemes often involved some of the most influential figures of their day, and while most failed or were foiled during the planning stage, a few managed to have far-reaching and often deadly consequences. From an ancient Roman coup d'état to the Lincoln assassination, get the facts on six of history’s most notorious political plots.

The Catiline Conspiracy

One of ancient Rome’s most scandalous conspiracies unfolded in 63 B.C., when the senator Catiline attempted to mount an uprising against the Republic. Frustrated by a stagnating political career—he had twice failed to be elected consul—Catiline formed Rome’s malcontent aristocrats, downtrodden veterans and indebted poor into a rebel army. He planned to march on the city and murder its nobles, but his scheme hit a snag when Cicero—one of Catiline’s chief political opponents—caught wind of the conspiracy and publically condemned him in a series of speeches on the Senate floor.

Under suspicion from his fellow politicians, Catiline fled Rome and rendezvoused with his forces in central Italy. The would-be rebellion was then publically exposed in December 63 B.C., when a Gallic tribe turned on the conspirators and revealed their plans to Cicero. Armed with hard evidence of a plot, Cicero and the Senate oversaw the execution of several of Catiline’s cohorts and dispatched an army to intercept him in the field. In the ensuing battle, Catiline’s army was routed and he and many of his fellow conspirators were killed.

The Gunpowder Plot

To this day, Britons still celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Day, an informal holiday marking the anniversary of the doomed “Gunpowder Plot.” The scheme first materialized in May 1604, when a small cell of disgruntled Catholics led by Robert Catesby hatched a plan to assassinate the anti-papist King James I and install his daughter as a puppet leader. In March 1605, the conspirators rented a cellar underneath the House of Lords and filled it with three-dozen barrels of gunpowder. Their plan was as simple as it was outrageous: when Parliament opened on November 5, they would blow King James and his entire government sky high.

Unfortunately for Catesby and company, their plot was exposed at the eleventh hour after one of their members sent a letter to the politician Lord Monteagle warning him not to attend Parliament. Monteagle turned the letter over to the authorities, and on the evening of November 4 a search team discovered Guy Fawkes—the conspirator tasked with lighting the fuse—standing watch over the gunpowder. Fawkes revealed the entire plot under torture at the Tower of London, and by January 1606, Catesby and the other schemers had all been rounded up or killed. The survivors were later found guilty of high treason and hanged, drawn and quartered.

The Pazzi Conspiracy

The illustrious Medici family ruled over Florence for some 300 years and helped fuel the Renaissance, but along the way they earned their fair share of enemies. Aggrieved by the family’s opposition to papal rule, in 1478 a group of conspirators led by Pope Sixtus IV, his nephew Girolamo Riario, the Archbishop of Pisa and others concocted an audacious scheme to wrest Tuscany from Medici hands. With the help of the Pazzi family—a rival Florentine clan—the group plotted to assassinate Lorenzo de’ Medici (also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent) and his brother Giuliano and then take charge of the city government.

The plan unfolded in grisly fashion on April 26, 1478. As the Medici brothers attended mass in the Duomo, they were set upon by two knife-wielding priests as well as a member of the Pazzi family and a hired assassin. Giuliano was stabbed some 20 times and killed, but Lorenzo managed to escape with only a shoulder wound. The larger coup failed to succeed after the botched assassination, and more than 200 conspirators were eventually captured and executed when an enraged citizenry rallied behind the Medici. When the dust finally settled, the Pazzi family had been stripped of their riches and permanently banished, leaving Lorenzo de’ Medici with almost total dominion over Florence.

The July 20 Plot

Adolf Hitler dodged several assassination attempts during World War II, but the most famous—and the closest to succeeding—came in 1944 in the weeks after the D-Day invasion. Convinced “Der Führer” was leading Germany to its doom, Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, Colonel General Friedrich Olbricht, Colonel General Ludwig Beck, Major General Henning von Tresckow and others conspired to see him dead. As part of a plan dubbed “Operation Valkyrie,” the men plotted to murder Hitler and then use Germany’s reserve army to seize Berlin’s supreme command headquarters and stage a coup against the Nazi high command.

On July 20, 1944, Von Stauffenberg attended a military conference in Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair” in Prussia armed with a bomb disguised in a briefcase. After placing the case near Hitler, he excused himself to make a phone call. The bomb successfully detonated at 12:42 p.m., but another officer had shifted the case behind a chair leg only moments before the explosion. While four other people were killed, Hitler escaped with only minor injuries. Operation Valkyrie crumbled with the news of his survival. Von Stauffenberg and Olbricht were promptly captured and shot, and Beck and Von Tresckow committed suicide. In the investigation that followed, Hitler saw that some 5,000 conspirators and suspected subversives were executed, many of them hanged with piano wire as a gruesome warning against future assassination plots.

The Newburgh Conspiracy

The little-known Newburgh Conspiracy unfolded in March 1783 as General George Washington’s battle-weary Continental Army wintered in a camp at Newburgh, New York. Despite having the upper hand in the Revolutionary War, Washington’s troops had grown frustrated with the fledgling Confederation Congress’ inability to compensate them with back pay and pensions. As the discontent spread, several high-ranking officers began circulating a letter written by an anonymous author calling himself “Brutus” (later revealed to be Major John Armstrong). The missive included a chilling suggestion: if Congress and the states would not pay up, the military might abandon the war effort and force their way into government coffers at gunpoint.

Though he was sympathetic to his soldiers’ plight, Washington knew that any uprising could have potentially disastrous consequences for the revolution. When the rabble-rousing officers met in an unsanctioned meeting on March 15, 1783, he made a surprise appearance and asked to address the crowd. After condemning the letter as unpatriotic and foolhardy, Washington urged the men to remain patient with Congress. Straining to read a letter near the end of his talk, he produced a small pair of spectacles and apologized, saying, “I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country…” The impassioned speech paid off. Struck by Washington’s devotion to the war, the officers voted to put their “unshaken confidence” in Congress. Washington would go on to negotiate a ceasefire with the British only a month later.

The Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy

John Wilkes Booth’s April 14, 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln was just one part of a much larger plot to strike a decisive blow against the Union high command. The conspiracy had originated months earlier, when Booth and several other Southern sympathizers schemed to kidnap Lincoln and hold him ransom in exchange for Confederate prisoners. The plan encountered repeated setbacks, and as the rebellion disintegrated in April 1865, Booth was forced to alter his strategy. After learning that Lincoln and Union General Ulysses S. Grant were set to attend the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., he resolved to carry out a series of coordinated assassinations. Booth would personally murder Lincoln and Grant, while his co-conspirators George Atzerodt and Lewis Powell would kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward in their homes.

The conspirators hoped the killings would send the U.S. government into a tailspin, but their plan quickly fell apart. While Booth succeeded in mortally wounding Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, he missed out on Grant, who had decided not to attend the play. At the same time, Powell attacked Seward as the Secretary lay in bed, but only succeeded in leaving him with severe knife wounds. Atzerodt, meanwhile, abandoned the plan entirely and made no attempt to assassinate Johnson. While Lincoln would die the following morning, his administration remained intact. Within weeks, Booth had been killed and Powell, Atzerodt and several other conspirators were arrested. All were later executed or condemned to prison.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

“It is now clear that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia,” Mrs. May said in the House of Commons. “The government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal.”

She said that either the poisoning was a “direct act of the Russian state against our country” or that Moscow had lost control of its nerve agent and had allowed it to get into the hands of others. The prime minister said that the government had summoned the Russian ambassador to demand an explanation, and that Britain expected a response from Russia by the end of the day on Tuesday. Russia has denied any responsibility.

“Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom, and I will come back to this House and set out the full range of measures we will take in response,” Mrs. May said.

“We shall not tolerate such a brazen act to murder innocent civilians on our soil.”

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

She said that either the poisoning was a “direct act of the Russian state against our country” or that Moscow had lost control of its nerve agent and had allowed it to get into the hands of others. The prime minister said that the government had summoned the Russian ambassador to demand an explanation, and that Britain expected a response from Russia by the end of the day on Tuesday. Russia has denied any responsibility.

Option 3: Russia is in the process of being framed for a crime they did not commit in order to swing public opinion. If untrue, explain the rush to judgement and punishment via the controlled narrative, before a thorough and public evidence based investigation can be concluded ? Define Russia's motive for this narratively alleged crime.

In the US, a frame-up (frameup) or setup is the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime.[1]

Sometimes, the person who is framing someone else is the actual perpetrator of the crime. In other cases it is an attempt by law enforcement to get around due process. Motives include getting rid of political dissidents or "correcting" what they see as the court's mistake. Some lawbreakers will try to claim they were framed as a defense strategy.

Frameups in labor disputes sometimes swing public opinion one way or the other. In Massachusetts, during the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, police acting on a tip discovered dynamite and blamed it on the union. National media echoed an anti-union message. Later, the police revealed that the dynamite had been wrapped in a magazine addressed to the son of the former mayor. The man had received an unexplained payment from the largest of the employers. Exposed, the plot swung public sympathy to the union.[2]

Frameups are often part of conspiracy theories. For example, there were frameup accusations in the anthrax incident involving the United States Postal Service.[3]

A frameup where a police officer shoots an unarmed suspect and then places a weapon near the body is a form of police misconduct known as a "throw down" used to justify the shooting.[4]

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Narrative paradigm is a communication theory conceptualized by 20th-century communication scholar Walter Fisher. The paradigm claims that all meaningful communication occurs via storytelling or reporting of events. Humans participate as storytellers and observers of narratives. This theory further claims that stories are more persuasive than arguments.[1][2] Essentially the narrative paradigm helps us to explain how humans are able to understand complex information through narrative.

Background

The Narrative Paradigm is a theory that suggests that human beings are natural storytellers and that a good story is more convincing than a good argument. Walter Fisher developed this theory as a solution making cohesive arguments. Fisher conceptualized the paradigm as a way to combat issues in the public sphere.[3] The issue was that human beings were unable to make cohesive traditional arguments. At the time, rational world paradigm was the theory used to satisfy public controversies. He believed that stories have the power to include beginning, middle, and end of an argument and that the rational world paradigm fails to be effective in sensemaking.[4]

Fisher uses the term paradigm rather than theory, meaning a paradigm is broader than a theory. Fisher stated, "There is no genre, including technical communication, that is not an episode in the story of life."[5]

Fisher believed that humans are not rational and proposed that narrative is the basis of communication. According to this viewpoint, people communicate by telling/observing a persuasive story rather than by producing evidence or constructing a logical argument. The narrative paradigm is purportedly all-encompassing, allowing all communication to be looked at as a narrative even though it may not conform to the traditional literary requirements of a narrative. He states:

Humans see the world as a set of stories. Each individual accepts stories that match his or her values and beliefs, understood as common sense.[6]

Although people claim that their decisions are rational,[6] incorporating history, culture, and perceptions about the other people involved, all of these are subjective and incompletely understood.

Narrative rationality requires stories to be probable, coherent and to exhibit fidelity.[7]

Storytelling is one of the first language skills that children develop. It is universal across cultures and time.[8]

Rational world paradigm

Walter Fisher conceptualized the Narrative Paradigm in direct contrast to the Rational World Paradigm. "Fisher's interest in narrative developed out of his conclusion that the dominant model for explaining human communication—the rational-world paradigm—was inadequate."[4] Rational World Paradigm suggest that an argument is most persuasive when it is logical. This theory is based in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle.

Comparison

Narrative paradigm1. Humans are storytellers. 2. Decision making and communication are based on "good reasons". 3. Good reasons are determined by matters of history, biography, culture and character. 4. Rationality is based in people's awareness of internal consistency and resemblance to lived experience. 5. We experience a world that is filled with stories, and we must choose among them.

Rational world paradigm1. Humans are rational.2. Decision making is based on arguments.3. Arguments adhere to specific criteria for soundness and logic.4. Rationality is based on the quality of evidence and formal reasoning processes.5. The world can be understood as a series of logical relationships that are uncovered through reasoning.

According to Aristotle, some statements are superior to others by virtue of their relationship to true knowledge. This view claims that:

People are essentially thinking beings, basing their knowledge on evidence-based reasoning.

Rational argument reflects knowledge and understanding, and how the case is made. These qualities determine whether the argument is accepted, so long as the form matches the forum, which might be scientific, legal, philosophical, etc.

The world is a set of logical puzzles that can be solved through reason.[9]

Narrative rationality

Narrative rationality requires coherence and fidelity, which contribute to judgments about reasons.[10]

Coherence

Narrative coherence is the degree to which a story makes sense. Coherent stories are internally consistent, with sufficient detail, reliable characters, and free of major surprises. The ability to assess coherence is learned and improves with experience. Individuals determine assess a story's coherence by comparing it with similar stories. The ultimate test of narrative coherence is whether the characters act in a reliable way. If characters show continuity throughout their thoughts, motives and actions, acceptance increases. However, characters behaving uncharacteristically destroys acceptance.[11]

Fidelity

Narrative fidelity is the degree to which a story fits into the observer's prior understanding. Stories with fidelity may influence their beliefs and values.[12]

Fisher set five criteria that affect a story's narrative fidelity:

the values embedded in the story

the connection between the story, and the espoused values

the possible outcomes that would accrue to people adhering to the espoused values

the consistency of the narrative's values with the observer's values

the extent to which the story’s values represent the highest values possible in human experience[13]

Evaluation of reasoning systems

Fisher's narrative paradigm offers an alternative to Aristotelian analysis, which dominates the field of rhetorical thinking. Narratives do not require training or expertise to evaluate. Common sense assesses narrative coherence and fidelity.[14] Busselle and Bilandzic distinguish narrative rationality from realism, writing "It is remarkable that the power of narrative is not diminished by readers’ or viewers’ knowledge that the story is invented. On the contrary, successful stories—those that engage us most—often are both fictional and unrealistic."[15]

Alternatively, Foucault claimed that communications systems are formed through the savoir and pouvoir (knowledge and power) of the hierarchies that control access to the discourses. Hence, criteria for assessing the reliability and completeness of evidence, and whether the pattern of reasoning is sound are not absolutes but defined over time by those in positions of authority. This is particularly significant when the process of reasoning includes values and policy in addition to empirical data.

The narrative paradigm instead asserts that any individual can judge a story's merits as a basis for belief and action.[3]

Narration affects every aspect of each individual's life in verbal and nonverbal bids for someone to believe or act in a certain way. Even when a message appears abstract—i.e., the language is literal and not figurative—it is narration. This is because it is embedded in the storyteller's ongoing story and it invites observers to assess its value for their own lives.

Narrative rationality and narrative emotion are complementary within a narrative theory. The former considers how effectively the story conveys its meaning, as well as its implications. The latter considers the emotional reactions of the story's observers.[16] Narrative emotion is an emotion felt for the sake of someone, or something, else.[16]

Applications

Narrative theory is an assessment framework within various fields of communication. Those who use narrative theory within their research refer to it as a general way of viewing communication. The narrative paradigm is generally considered an interpretative theory of communication.[17] It is an especially useful theory for teaching qualitative research methods.[18]

Fisher’s theory has been considered for domains ranging from organizational communication to family interaction, to racism, and to advertising. McNamara proposed that the narrative paradigm can be used with military storytelling towards to enhance the perception of the United States armed services.[19] Stutts and Barker of Virginia Commonwealth University, proposed that the Narrative Paradigm can be used to evaluate if a company's brand will be well received by consumers, by determining if the created narrative has coherence and fidelity.[20] Other researchers proposed using the narrative paradigm to evaluate ethical standards in advertising.[21] Roberts used the narrative paradigm as a way to better understand the use of narrative in folklore.[22] Hobart proposed using narrative theory as a way to interpret urban legends and other kinds of hoaxes.[23]

Narrative paradigm is also applicable when assessing multinational working relationships. Global interactions between groups with different backgrounds have the tendency to hinder group progress and building relationships. Over the past two decades, scholars conceptualize diversity in the workplace using several different theories. As companies continue to diversify, business look for communication models to help manage the complex structure of human relationships. Narrative paradigm serves as a communication technique that shows companies how the application of a good story could provide benefits in the workforce. Storytelling is a cross-cultural solution that establishes credibility and trust in relationships between workers.[24]

Narrative and politics

One example of a study that used narrative theory more directly was conducted Smith in 1984. Smith looked at the fidelity and coherence of narratives presented as Republican and Democrat Party platforms in the United States and found that despite obvious differences, each party was able to maintain coherence and fidelity by remaining consistent in both structure and overarching party values.[25]

Narrative and health communication

A study claimed that narrative features can be strategically altered by health communicators to affect the reader's identification. It found that similarities between the reader and the narrative's protagonist, but not the narrator's point of view, has a direct impact on the narrative's persuasiveness.[26]

Narrative and branding

Narrative processing can create or enhance connections between a brand and an audience.[27] Companies and business use stories or brands that suggest a story, to produce brand loyalty. Businesses invest heavily in creating a good story through advertising and public relations.[28] In brand development, many marketers focus on defining a brand persona (typical user) before constructing a narrative for that brand. Character traits such as honesty, curiosity, flexibility and determination become embedded in the persona. Commitment to the associated behavioral implications can help the brand maintain consistency with its narrative.[29]

Criticism

Critics of the narrative paradigm mainly contend that it is not as universally applicable as Fisher suggests. For example, Rowland asserted that it should be applied strictly to communication that fits classic narrative patterns to avoid undermining its credibility.[30]

Other critiques include issues of conservative bias. Kirkwood stated that Fisher's logic of good reasons focuses only on prevailing issues,[31] but does not see all the ways that stories can promote social change.[32] In some ways, both Kirkwood and Fisher agree that this observation is more of an extension to the theory than a critique.

Stroud considered "multivalent" narratives that include seemingly contradictory values or positions that force a reader to reconstruct their meaning, thereby enabling positive judgments of narrative fidelity and the adoption of new values.[33]

Some forms of communication are not narrative in the way that Fisher maintains. Many science fiction and fantasy novels/movies challenge rather than conform to common values.[32]

The narrative approach does not provide a more democratic structure compared to the one imposed by the rational world paradigm. Nor does it offer a complete alternative to that paradigm.[34] The narrative paradigm gained attention from poststructuralist education theorists for appealing the notions of truth.[35]

Related theories

Rhetoric theory

The narrative paradigm incorporates both the pathos and logos form of rhetoric theory. Rhetoric theory was formulated by Aristotle.[36] He defines rhetoric as: the available means of persuasion.[32] It includes two assumptions.

Effective public speakers must consider their audience.

Effective public speakers supply proofs.

Aristotle divided public speaking into three parts: the speaker, the subject and the audience. He considered the audience the most important, determining the speech’s end and object. Therefore, audience analysis, which is the process of evaluating an audience and its background is essential.

In the second assumption, Aristotle’s proof refers to the means of persuasion. And these three proof types are Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

Ethos: The perceived character, intelligence and goodwill of a speaker as they become revealed through his or her speech.

Logos: The logic proof that speakers employ.

Pathos: The emotions that are drawn out of listeners.

Rhetoric theory can be applied in multiple areas, such as in the social/environmental report,[37] Facebook post, etc.

Situation models

When people experience a story, the comprehension phase is where they form a mental representation of the text.[38] Such a mental representation is called a situation model. Situation models are representations of the state of affairs described in a text rather than of the text itself. Much of the research suggests that observers behave as though they are in the story rather than outside of it. This supports Fisher’s model that narrative components supported by good reasons are related to components in situation models.

Space

Situation models represent relevant aspects of the narrative's environment. Objects that are spatially close to observers are generally more relevant than more distant objects. The same holds for situation models. Observers are similarly slower to recognize words denoting objects distant from a protagonist than those close to the protagonist.[39] When observers have extensive knowledge of the spatial layout of the story setting (e.g., a building), they update their representations according to the location and goals of the protagonist. They have the fastest mental access to the room that the protagonist is close to. For example, they can more readily say whether two objects are in the same room if the room mentioned is close to the protagonist. The interpretation of the meaning of a verb denoting the movement of people or objects in space, such as to approach, depends on their situation models. The interpretation of observers also depends on the size of the landmark and the speed of the figure. Observers behave as if they are actually present in the situation.[40]

Goals and causation

In one study observers recognized goals yet to be accomplished by the protagonist more quickly than goals that had just been accomplished. When Keefe and McDaniel presented subjects with sentences such as "after standing through a 3-hour debate, the tired speaker walked over to his chair (and sat down)" and then with probe words (e.g., "sat").[41] Subjects took about the same amount of time to name sat when the clause about the speaker sitting down was omitted and when it was included. Moreover, naming times were significantly faster in both of these conditions than in a control condition, in which it was implied that the speaker remained standing.[42]

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

The 38-year-old presenter was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, West London, in what remains one of the UK's most high-profile unsolved murders

Today marks the 17th anniversary of the murder of Jill Dando.

The 38-year-old BBC star was shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, West London in what remains one of the UK's most high-profile unsolved murders.

Barry George, a loner who lived a few minutes from Jill's house, was jailed for eight years for her murder but cleared after a retrial in 2008 following concerns raised over forensic evidence.

Last year, files obtained by investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas and the Sunday Mirror revealed a number of leads which appear to have been pushed to one side as Scotland Yard pursued its case against Barry George.

The investigation has never been officially closed but despite calls for a fresh probe it is understood little or no police time has been devoted to the case since December 2013.

In a short statement, Scotland Yard told the Mirror this week: "If any new information comes to our attention then this will be investigated."

We re-visit the theories which appear to still be unexplained as the mystery over Jill's killer goes on.

1) Jill was murdered by a hitman ordered by one of London's most prominent crime families

Jill Dando was shot with a single bullet to the head in broad daylight on a busy London street.

The killer then slipped away without leaving a trace of DNA at the scene or even a definitive sighting.

The shooting appeared to have all the hallmarks of a professional gangland hit.

An intelligence report named two men from one of London's most prominent crime families.

It suggested Jill was being targeted for investigating crime on television.

But the lead detective on the Dando case , DCI Hamish Campbell, ordered no further action on the report. Prime suspect Barry George had already been charged.

2) Serbian mafia carried out hit in revenge for Nato-led bombing of TV station

Detectives were told Serbian mobsters based in Britain plotted the assassination over drinks at a nightclub.

The tip-off accusing the Serb gangsters claimed they carried out the hit in revenge for a Nato-led bombing of a Serbian TV station.

A message filed to detectives said: “Dando was murdered by a Serb hitman in revenge for the attack that Nato mounted...

“The people who planned Dando’s murder meet and drink in a club called Scandal in London’s West End. One of those involved is a tall male with a swallow tattoo on his neck.”

Files also reveal that a call to BBC Television Centre three days after Jill’s murder contained a death threat against Watchdog stars Anne Robinson and Alice Beer.

A record of the call said: “From Serbia, going to kill Anne Robinson, Alice Beer and two others.” Police traced it to Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, but found no way of tracking the culprit.

Jill had fronted a TV appeal for Kosovan-Albanian refugees just weeks before her death, which is believed to have enraged Serb paramilitaries.

Four Serbs are currently on trial over a killing with striking similarities - they are accused of assassinating Slavko Curuvija, a journalist and critic of the Serb regime who was shot in the head at point-blank range outside his home 15 days before Jill's death.

3) IRA revenge killing

Among 52,000 documents provided to Barry George's legal team, were files revealing a convicted killer penned a letter from prison claiming he was part of a four-man IRA hit squad that murdered Jill.

Wayne Aird claimed senior paramilitaries chose her as a target because of her links to police through her work presenting Crimewatch .

He wrote the letter from his cell at Wakefield prison where he was serving life for killing a man two months after Jill’s death.

Aird said a member of the gang shot her with a 9mm bullet before they escaped in Land Rovers to a safe house in the capital.

He said he was confessing because he did not want George to be part of an Establishment cover-up.

Aird claimed that the IRA was being allowed to get away with Jill’s killing to avoid harming the Northern Ireland peace process.

It is understood that police were made aware of Aird’s letter but did not investigate further

4) Jill was murdered after trying to expose 'VIP paedophile ring'

In 2014, a former colleague claimed Jill tried to raise concerns to BBC bosses about allegations of paedophile ring and other incidents of sexual abuse at the Beeb months before her death.

The source said: “I don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone, but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.

“I think she was quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available.

“Jill said others had complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also claimed they had been groped or assaulted."

A BBC spokesman said they would always investigate any allegations of this nature, but added: “We’ve not seen anything that substantiates these claims.”

5) 'Joe' the Spanish barman

A report, from the now-defunct National Criminal Intelligence Service, said Jill’s killing could be traced to a gunman called Joe in Spain.

He was linked to murderer Kenneth Noye, who is serving life for a 1996 road rage killing and was put away with the help of a Crimewatch appeal.

The report said: “Joe runs a bar in Tenerife, frequented by leading ex-pat criminals. He's described as a frustrated gangster reputed to owe money to Kenny Noye.

“There’s been talk Joe has been keen to rehabilitate his reputation with gangster creditors.”

Joe allegedly came to the UK specifically to carry out the crime.

It appears that Joe was never traced.

Jill Dando timeline

April 26, 1999, 11.30am Jill’s shot dead with single bullet to the head outside her home in Fulham, South West London.

May 25, 2000 Police arrest Barry George, also known as Barry Bulsara, following surveillance on him.

July 2, 2001 A jury finds George guilty of murder on a 10-1 majority. He is later sentenced to life imprisonment.

July 29, 2002 George loses an appeal against his conviction at the Court of Appeal in London.

December 16 House of Lords refuses permission for George to mount a further challenge.

March 25, 2006 It is revealed lawyers for George have submitted new evidence which they believe undermines safety of his conviction.

June 20, 2007 Criminal Cases Review Commission refers the conviction to the Court of Appeal.

October 29 Foreman of the jury that convicted George in 2001 says he might have been found not guilty if crucial evidence linked to firearms residue found in his pocket was presented differently.

November 5 George begins second appeal.

November 15 George’s appeal is upheld and a retrial ordered after scientists challenge firearms evidence.

June 9, 2008 Retrial begins at the Old Bailey with the judge ruling out the inclusion of the residue evidence.

August 1 George cleared of the Crimewatch presenter’s murder. He loses bid for compensation in 2013.

February 2014 Serbian assassins linked to the murder.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Update: Just hours after Macron issued the statement below demanding "more proof" and decrying May's "fantasy politics," it appears a phone call with the UK has changed the attitude and Germany, US, and France have now issued a statement that says they agree with UK that "Russia must be responsible" for the UK attack.

The countries are "horrified" at the attack, according to the joint statement, and explain in full-Haley (Colin-Powell-esque) fearmongery, warn the attack "threatens the security of us all" and Russia must explain the UK attack.

As AP reports, the leaders of the United States, France, Germany and Britain say they are united in blaming Russia for a nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal.

In a rare joint statement, President Donald Trump, President Emmanual Macron, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Theresa May say "there is no plausible alternative explanation" to Russian responsibility in the March 4 attack in England.

They say Russia's failure to respond to Britain's "legitimate request" for an explanation "further underlines its responsibility."

First use of nerve agent in Europe since World War II “threatens all of our security”

The leaders say the use of a chemical weapon is "an assault on U.K. sovereignty" and "a breach of international law."

“We call on Russia to respond to all questions connected with the attack in Salisbury,” particularly those relating to its Novichok program

Britain has expelled 23 Russian diplomats and suspended high-level contacts with Moscow over the incident. Russia is expected to take retaliatory measures soon.

* * *

As we detailed earlier, UK Prime Minister made many of her European allies uneasy (particularly those who, like Germany, rely on Russia for supplies of LNG) on Monday when she accused the Russian government of masterminding an attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal - an attack that left 18 bystanders and one law-enforcement officer hospitalized.

And with Russia threatening to retaliate, France's Emmanuel Macron - hardly a far-right authoritarian - is speaking up and undermining May's push to rally international support for another round of sanctions against Russia, according to RT.

Macron said he wants more proof linking Russia to the attack - which occurred at a shopping center in Salisbury earlier this month. So far, the UK government has essentially admitted that its strongest evidence was the presence at the scene of a nerve agent known to have been developed in Russia. May has threatened sanctions in response to the attack. And on Tuesday, she ordered 23 Russian diplomats to leave the country. The reaction resembled the UK's response to the death via radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

Via a spokesman, Macron accused May of engaging in "fantasy politics."

On Wednesday, May announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats and the suspension of bilateral talks. May claimed Russia was "culpable" for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, which amounted to "unlawful use of force against the UK."

However, President Emmanuel Macron’s spokesman suggested May was acting prematurely. "We don’t do fantasy politics. Once the elements are proven then the time will come for decisions to be made, Benjamin Griveaux told a news conference in Paris.

Griveaux added that France was waiting for "definitive conclusions" and evidence that the "facts were completely true” before taking a position. He said that the Salisbury poisoning was a "serious act" against a strategic ally, but France would await evidence of Russian involvement before taking a position.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has asked the UK for a sample of the toxin that it's citing as evidence so that it might be examined by Russia.

Lavrov has also threatened to retaliate by expelling British diplomats. Russia has also refused to respond to the UK's demand that it furnish an explanation for how the nerve agent came to be found at the scene. Did Russia deliberately plan the attack? Or did it simply recklessly lose track of dangerous chemical weapons? The UK said it would give Russia a day to respond, infuriating the Kremlin.

In return, Russia has sternly rebuked the UK for its conduct, cautioning that "one does not give 24 hours notice to a nuclear power."

In addition to refusing to share the toxin, the UK is resisting settling the issue through the proper channels - ie the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Russia and the UK are both members.

Moscow’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, said Wednesday that "we demand that material proof be provided of the allegedly found Russian trace in this high-resonance event. Without this, stating that there is incontrovertible truth is not something that we can take into account."

Even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also challenged May’s evidence of Russian culpability. Corbyn believes there is not enough proof to conclude Russia was behind the incident.

"The government has access to information and intelligence on this matter which others don’t. However, there is also a history in relation to weapons of mass destruction and intelligence which is problematic, to put it mildly," said Corbys spokesman Seumas Milne. "I think the right approach is to seek the evidence to follow international treaties, particularly in relation to prohibitive chemical weapons."

* * *

However, as one Twitter user pointed out, if Russian President Vladimir Putin really did personally authorize the "wet job" - FSB-speak for assassination - then for a reportedly 'smart guy', he picked a remarkably ill-time moment to carry out such an attack...

Tom Slaughter@tgs31952This Putin guy is really something: at the height of anti-Russian hysteria in the west, and right before both the Russian election and World Cup, he decides the time is right to execute a spy living openly in the UK since 2010 using a Russian nerve agent.

8:14 PM - Mar 12, 2018

[Read the comments at the source link!]

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Assuming mankind finds a way not to destroy itself in the near future and assuming that there will still be historians in the 22nd or 23rd centuries, I bet you that they will look at the AngloZionist Empire and see the four following characteristics as some of its core features: lies, willful ignorance, hypocrisy, and hysterics. To illustrate my point I will use the recent “Skripal nerve-gas assassination” story as it really encompasses all of these characteristics.

I won’t even bother debunking the official nonsense here as others have done a very good job of pointing out the idiocy of the official narrative. If you are truly capable of believing that “Putin” (that is the current collective designator for the Evil Empire of Mordor currently threatening all of western civilization) would order the murder of a man whom a Russian military court sentenced to only 13 years in jail (as opposed to life or death) and who was subsequently released as part of a swap with the USA, you can stop reading right now and go back to watching TV. I personally have neither the energy nor the inclination to even discuss such a self-evidently absurd theory. No, what I do want to do is use this story as a perfect illustration of the kind of society we now all live in looked at from a moral point of view. I realize that we live in a largely value-free society where moral norms have been replaced by ideological orthodoxy, but that is just one more reason for me to write about what is taking place precisely focusing on the moral dimensions of current events.

Lies and the unapologetic denial of reality:

In a 2015 article entitled “A society of sexually frustrated Pinocchios” I wrote the following:

I see a direct cause and effect relationship between the denial of moral reality and the denial of physical reality. I can’t prove that, of course, but here is my thesis: Almost from day one, the early western civilization began by, shall we say, taking liberties with the truth, which it could bend, adapt, massage and repackage to serve the ideological agenda of the day. It was not quite the full-blown and unapologetic relativism of the 19th century yet, but it was an important first step. With “principles” such as the end justifies the means and the wholesale violation of the Ten Commandants all “for the greater glory of God” the western civilization got cozy with the idea that there was no real, objective truth, only the subjective perception or even representation each person might have thereof. Fast forward another 10 centuries or so and we end up with the modern “Gayropa” (as Europe is now often referred to in Russia): not only has God been declared ‘dead’ and all notions of right and wrong dismissed as “cultural”, but even objective reality has now been rendered contingent upon political expediency and ideological imperatives.

I went on to quote George Orwell by reminding how he defined “doublethink” in his book 1984:

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it (…) To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality“

and I concluded by saying that “The necessary corollary from this state of mind is that only appearances matter, not reality”.

This is exactly what we are observing; not only in the silly Skripal nerve-gas assassination story but also in all the rest of the Russophobic nonsense produced by the AngloZionist propaganda machine including the “Litvinenko polonium murder” and the “Yushchenko dioxin poisoning“. The fact that neither nerve-gas, nor polonium nor dioxin are in any way effective murder weapons does not matter in the least: a simple drive-by shooting, street-stabbing or, better, any “accident” is both easier to arrange and impossible to trace. Fancy assassination methods are used when access to the target is very hard or impossible (as was the case with Ibn al-Khattab, whose assassination the Russians were more than happy to take credit for; this might also have been the case with the death of Yasser Arafat). But the best way of murdering somebody is to simply make the body disappear, making any subsequent investigation almost impossible. Finally, you can always subcontract the assassination to somebody else like, for example, when the CIA tried and failed, to murder Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Fadlallah by subcontracting his bombing to its local “Christian” allies, killing over 80 innocent people in the process. There is plenty of common crime in the UK and to get somebody to rob and stab Skripal would have probably been the easiest version. That’s assuming that the Russians had any reason to want him dead, which they self-evidently didn’t.

But here is the important thing: every single criminal or intelligence specialist in the West understands all of the above. But that does not stop the Ziomedia from publishing articles like this one “A Brief History of Attempted Russian Assassinations by Poison” which also lists people poisoned by Russians:

Skripal by nerve gasLitvinenko by poloniumKara-Murza poisoned not once, but TWICE, by an unknown poison, he survived!Markov poisoned by ricin and the Bulgarians with “speculated KGB assistance”Khattab by sarin or a sarin-derivativeYushchenko by dioxinPerepilichny by “a rare, toxic flower, gelsemium” (I kid you not, check the article!)Moskalenko by mercuryPolitkovskaya who was shot, but who once felt “ill after drinking some tea that she believed contained poison”

The only possible conclusion from this list is this: there is some kind of secret lab in Russia where completely incompetent chemists try every poison known to man, not on rats or on mice, but on high profile AngloZionist-supported political activists, preferably before an important political event.

Right.

By the way, the gas allegedly used in the attack, “Novichok”, was manufactured in Uzbekistan and the cleanup of the factory producing it was made by, you guessed it, a US company. Just saying…

In any halfway honest and halfway educated society, those kind of articles should result in the idiot writing it being summarily fired for gross incompetence and the paper/journal posting it being discredited forever. But in our world, the clown who wrote that nonsense (Elias Groll, a Harvard graduate and – listen to this – a specialist of “cyberspace and its conflicts and controversies” (sic)) is a staff writer of the award-winning Foreign Policy magazine.

So what does it tell us, and future historians, when this kind of crap is written by a staff writer of an “award winning” media outlet? Does it not show that our society has now reached a stage in its decay (I can’t call that “development”) where lies become the norm? Not only are even grotesque and prima facie absurd lies accepted, they are expected (if only because they reinforce the current ideological Zeitgeist. The result? Our society is now packed with first, zombified ideological drones who actually believe any type of officially proclaimed of nonsense and, second, by cowards who lack the basic courage to denounce even that which they themselves know to be false.

Lies, however ridiculous and self-evidently stupid, have become the main ingredient of the modern political discourse. Everybody knows this and nobody cares. When challenged on this, the typical defense used is always the same: “you are the only person saying this – I sure ever heard this before!”.

Willful ignorance as a universal cop-out

We all know the type. You tell somebody that his/her theory makes absolutely no sense or is not supported by facts and the reply you get is some vaguely worded refusal to engage in an disputation. Initially, you might be tempted to believe that, indeed, your interlocutor is not too bright and not too well read, but eventually you realize that there is something very different happening: the modern man actually makes a very determined effort not to be capable of logical thought and not to be informed of the basic facts of the case. And what is true for specific individuals is even more true of our society as a whole. Let’s take one simple example: Operation Gladio:

“Gladio” is really an open secret by now. Excellent books and videos have been written about this and even the BBC has made a two and a half hour long video about it. There is even an entire website dedicated to the story of this huge, continent-wide, terrorist organization specializing in false flag operations. That’s right: a NATO-run terrorist network in western Europe involved in false flag massacres like the infamous Bologna train station bombing. No, not the Soviet KGB backing the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction or the Red Brigades in Italy. No, the USA and West European governments organizing, funding and operating a terrorist network directed at the people of Western, not Eastern, Europe. Yes, at their own people! In theory, everybody should know about this, the information is available everywhere, even on the hyper-politically correct Wikipedia. But, again, nobody cares.

The end of the Cold War was marked by a seemingly endless series of events which all provided a pretext for AngloZionist interventions (from the Markale massacres in Bosnia, to the Srebrenica “genocide”, to the Racak massacre Kosovo, to the “best” and biggest one of them all, 9/11 of course). Yet almost nobody wondered if the same people or, at least, the same kind of people who committed all the Gladio crimes might be involved. Quite the opposite: each one of these events was accompanied by a huge propaganda campaign mindlessly endorsing and even promoting the official narrative, even when it self-evidently made no sense whatsoever (like 2 aircraft burning down 3 steel towers). As for Gladio, it was conveniently “forgotten”.

There is a simple principle in psychology, including, and especially in criminal psychology which I would like to prominently restate here:

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior

Every criminalist knows that and this is why criminal investigators place so much importance on the “modus operandi”, i.e. the particular way or method a suspect or a criminal chooses in the course of the execution of his/her crimes. That is also something which everybody knows. So let’s summarize this in a simple thesis:

Western regimes have a long and well-established track record of regularly executing bloody false-flag operations in pursuit of political objectives, especially those providing them with a pretext to justify an illegal military aggression.

Frankly, I submit that the thesis above is really established not only by a preponderance of evidence but beyond a reasonable doubt. Right?

Maybe. But that is also completely irrelevant because nobody gives a damn! Not the reporters who lie for a living nor, even less so, the brainwashed zombies who read their nonsense and take it seriously. The CIA tried to kill Fidel Castro over 600 times – who cares?! All we know is that the good folks at Langley would never, ever, kill a Russian in the UK, out of respect for international law, probably…

That willful ignorance easily defeats history, facts or logic.

Here is a simple question a journalist could ask: “would the type of people who had no problems blowing up an large train station, or bringing down three buildings in downtown New York, have any hesitation in using a goofy method to try kill a useless Russian ex-spy if that could justify further hostile actions against a country which they desperately need to demonize to justify and preserve the current AngloZionist world order?”. The answer I think is self-evident. The question shall therefore not be asked. Instead, soy-boys from Foreign Policy mag will tell us about how the Russians use exotic flowers to kill high visibility opponents whose death would serve no conceivable political goal.

Hypocrisy as a core attribute of the modern man

Willful ignorance is important, of course, but it is not enough. For one thing, being ignorant, while useful to dismiss a fact-based and/or logical argument, is not something useful to establish your moral superiority or the legality of your actions. Empire requires much more than just obedience from its subject: what is also absolutely indispensable is a very strong sense of superiority which can be relied upon when committing a hostile action against the other guy. And nothing is as solid a foundation for a sense of superiority than the unapologetic reliance on brazen hypocrisy. Let’s take a fresh example: the latest US threats to attack Syria (again).

Irrespective of the fact that the USA themselves have certified Syria free of chemical weapons and irrespective of the fact that US officials are still saying that they have no evidence that the Syrian government was involved in any chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, the USA is now preparing to strike Syria again in “response” to future chemical attacks! Yes, you read that right. The AngloZionists are now announcing their false flags in advance! In fact, by the time this analysis is published the attack will probably already have occurred. The “best” part of this all is that Nikki Haley has now announced to the UN Security Council that the US will act without any UN Security Council approval. What the USA is declaring is this: “we reserve the right to violate international law at any time and for any reason we deem sufficient”. In the very same statement, Nikki Haley also called the Syrian government an “outlaw regime”. This is not a joke, check it out for yourself. The reaction in “democratic” Europe: declaring that *Russia* (not the US) is a rogue state. QED.

This entire circus is only made possible by the fact that the western elites have all turned into “great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies” (to use the wonderful words of Boris Johnson) and that absolutely nobody has the courage, or decency, to call all this what it really is: an obscene display of total hypocrisy and wholesale violation of all norms of international law. The French philosopher Alain Soral is quite right when he says that modern “journalists are either unemployed or prostitutes” (he spoke about the French media – un journaliste français c’est soit une pute soit un chômeur – but this fully applies to all the western media). Except that I would extend it to the entire Western Establishment.

I would further argue that foreign aggression and hypocrisy have become the two essential pillars for the survival of the AngloZionist empire: the first one being an economic and political imperative, the 2nd one being the prerequisite for the public justification of the first one. But sometimes even that is not enough, especially when the lies are self-evidently absurd. Then the final, quasi-miraculous element is always brought in: hysterics.

Hysteria as the highest form of (pseudo-)liberalism

I don’t particularly care for the distinction usually made between liberals and conservatives, at least not unless the context and these terms is carefully and accurately defined. I certainly don’t place myself on that continuum nor do find it analytically helpful.

The theoretical meaning of these concepts is, however, quite different from what is mostly understood under these labels, especially when people use them to identify themselves. That is to say that while I am not at all sure that those who think of themselves as, say, liberals are in any way truly liberal, I do think that people who would identify themselves as “liberals” often (mostly?) share a number of characteristics, the foremost of which is a very strong propensity to function at, and engage in, an hysterical mode of discourse and action.

The Google definition of hysteria is “exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people (…) whose symptoms include conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms (somatization), selective amnesia, shallow volatile emotions, and overdramatic or attention-seeking behavior”. Is that not a perfect description of US politicians, especially the (putatively) “liberal” ones? Just think of the way US Democrats have capitalized on such (non-)issues as “Russian interference” (externally) or “gun control” (internally) and you will see that the so-called “liberals” never get off a high-emotional pitch. The best example of all, really, is their reaction to the election of Donald Trump instead of their cult-leader Hillary: it has been over a year since Trump has been elected and yet the liberal ziomedia and its consumers are still in full-blown hysteria mode (with “pussyhats”, “sky-screams” and all). In a conversation you can literally drown such a liberal with facts, statistics, expert testimonies, etc. and achieve absolutely no result whatsoever because the liberal lives in an ideological comfort zone which he/she is categorically unwilling and, in fact, unable, to abandon, even temporarily. This is what makes liberals such a *perfect* audience for false-flag operations: they simply won’t process the narrative presented to them in a logical manner but will immediately react to it in a strongly emotional manner, usually with the urge to immediately “do something”.

That “do something” is usually expressed in the application of violence (externally) and the imposition of bans/restrictions/regulations (internally). You can try to explain to that liberal that the very last thing the Russians would ever want to do is to use a stupid method to try to kill a person who is of absolutely no interest to them, or to explain to that liberal that the very last thing the Syrian government would ever do in the course of its successful liberation of its national territory from “good terrorists” would be to use chemical weapons of any kind – but you would never achieve anything: Trump must be impeached, the Russians sanctioned and the Syrians bombed, end of argument.

I am quite aware that there are a lot of self-described “conservatives” who have fully joined this chorus of hysterical liberals in all their demands, but these “conservatives” are not only acting out of character, they are simply caving in to the social pressure of the day, being the “great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies” mentioned above. Again, I am not discussing real liberals or real conservatives here (regardless of what these terms really mean), I am talking about those who, for whatever reason, chose to place that label upon themselves even if they personally have only a very vague idea of what this label is supposed to mean.

So there we have it: an Empire built (and maintained) on lies, accepted on the basis ignorance, justified by hypocrisy and energized by hysterics. This is what the “Western world” stands for nowadays. And while there is definitely a vocal minority of “resisters” (from the Left and the Right – also two categories I don’t find analytically helpful – and from many other schools of political thought), the sad reality is that the vast majority of people around us accept this and see no reason to denounce it, nevermind doing something about it. That is why “they” got away with 9/11 and why “they” will continue to get away with future false-flags because the people lied to, realize, at least on some level, that they are being lied to and yet they simply don’t care. Truly, the Orwellian slogans of 1984 “war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” perfectly fit our world. However, when dealing with the proverbial Russian bear, there is one lesson of history which western leaders really should never forget and which they should also turn into a slogan: when dealing with a bear, hubris is suicidal.

The Saker

[Read the comments at the source link!]

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it is overwhelmingly likely it was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to direct the nerve agent attack against Sergei Skripal and his daughter.During a museum visit in west London alongside his Polish counterpart Jacek Czaputowicz, Johnson said: "We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening.”

"Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe for the first time since the Second World War."

However, as one Twitter user pointed out, if Russian President Vladimir Putin really did personally authorize the "wet job" - FSB-speak for assassination - then for a reportedly 'smart guy', he picked a remarkably ill-time moment to carry out such an attack...

Tom Slaughter@tgs31952This Putin guy is really something: at the height of anti-Russian hysteria in the west, and right before both the Russian election and World Cup, he decides the time is right to execute a spy living openly in the UK since 2010 using a Russian nerve agent.

Assuming mankind finds a way not to destroy itself in the near future and assuming that there will still be historians in the 22nd or 23rd centuries, I bet you that they will look at the AngloZionist Empire and see the four following characteristics as some of its core features: lies, willful ignorance, hypocrisy, and hysterics. To illustrate my point I will use the recent “Skripal nerve-gas assassination” story as it really encompasses all of these characteristics.

I won’t even bother debunking the official nonsense here as others have done a very good job of pointing out the idiocy of the official narrative. If you are truly capable of believing that “Putin” (that is the current collective designator for the Evil Empire of Mordor currently threatening all of western civilization) would order the murder of a man whom a Russian military court sentenced to only 13 years in jail (as opposed to life or death) and who was subsequently released as part of a swap with the USA, you can stop reading right now and go back to watching TV. I personally have neither the energy nor the inclination to even discuss such a self-evidently absurd theory. No, what I do want to do is use this story as a perfect illustration of the kind of society we now all live in looked at from a moral point of view. I realize that we live in a largely value-free society where moral norms have been replaced by ideological orthodoxy, but that is just one more reason for me to write about what is taking place precisely focusing on the moral dimensions of current events.

Look everyone, look! Boris told the truth!! He took Terl's advice and sweetened his lie with a tiny bit of truth.. but it's undeniably there, a little nugget, a grain of truth!

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.

Could someone do me a favour and send this website address and documentation to all relevant departments of the UK Government, (Prime Minister, Foreign Office, BBC, Police Commissioner etc). It will help the UK on a path to non rogue state banana republic governance.. it's a lot to ask I know but hang in there and remain non violent, it's the only way to avoid a Pyrrhic victory!

An investigation conducted by police officers with a view to it being ascertained whether a person should be charged with an offence, or whether a person charged with an offence is guilty of it.

Investigations may be carried out in relation to:

crimes that have been committed

identifying whether a crime has actually been committed, with a view to commencing criminal proceedings

crimes that the police believe may be committed, for example, when premises or individuals are kept under observation for a period of time, with a view to the possible institution of criminal proceedings.

Investigations can be either reactive or proactive.

Ethics

The activities and processes of criminal investigation can attract considerable attention, partly due to media coverage of crime and criminal behaviour, but also because of the impact crime has on individuals and communities.

To build and maintain public confidence, the police have a responsibility to ensure that investigations are carried out professionally, ethically, and to an agreed standard. Under the remit of the national policing crime business area (CBA) portfolio, the professionalising investigation programme (PIP) was introduced to support this quality approach to investigations.

The success of an investigation relies on the goodwill and cooperation of victims, witnesses and the community. Investigators should be aware that:

investigations should be conducted with integrity, common sense and sound judgement

effective investigators maintain a balance that recognises the concerns of all the parties involved

understanding the response to crime assists investigators to build this relationship

a professional approach to investigations benefits the victim, the public and the police.

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Everyman Standing Order 01: In the Face of Tyranny; Everybody Stands, Nobody Runs.Everyman Standing Order 02: Everyman is Responsible for Energy and Security.Everyman Standing Order 03: Everyman knows Timing is Critical in any Movement.